Strings of the Night
by Christopher Rus
Summary: History records that Priest Seto rebelled against the throne. A most loyal servant against a most beloved pharaoh. What horrid decisions could have led these two men to such an end? And by what meanness of chance was an unfortunate girl cast into this tempest?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"I hear terrible rumours." said Seto.

"What are you saying?" asked Aknadin.

The two men stood in Seto's bedchamber. The door was locked. The room was sparsely furnished and austere, according to his taste. There was a bed in the corner, and opposite it against the stone wall, there was a single desk and chair. On the desk sat a couple of pieces of papyrus and an unlit lamp, as it was day. Light filtered through the small circular window above the bed.

"It's hard to believe you haven't heard them, Master Aknadin."

"Oh Seto, I didn't think such things upset you. Pay them no mind, they come with the palace life."

Yes, the palace life. Those two words can excuse any frivolity.

"Does a person trouble you?" continued Aknadin.

"Many do."

"What have they said to you?"

"These people don't say a thing before me. But it's not hard to spot words being exchanged behind hands as I pass. And that is to say nothing of the conversations that must be had behind closed doors."

"What have you heard?"

"Bebi, the priest of the goddess Isis, claims I hold no faith in her."

"A little impiety is not unusual. I doubt many besides Bebi will care."

"There were whispers that I siphon funds from the troops under my command. I believe Harwa, the chief of the palace guards, is their source."

"The practice is common enough. As long it's modest you have no reason to worry."

"But I do no such thing!"

"Even better."

"And then Ineni, the wife of the governor of Asyut, she is among of the worst. Her hostility is infectious. She tells the governor of Qift that I plot to throw him from his seat."

"Is there any truth to that? Few liars are brazen enough to invent a tale without a single strand."

"The man disappoints in his rule, I've said that. I'm sure there are others that think the same. Regardless, I've done nothing to undermine his position."

Aknadin nodded. He wore a sympathetic frown. "You are a good man, Seto, I know that. You are undeserving of any of this venom. But you must understand this is as natural as breath among our rank. Honour bestowed on one is a reproach for forty. And-"

He continued after a pause, "You have no family. No ancestry. A commoner reaching such heights is without precedent. You must see how it could rouse envy or contempt. Take Ineni, you know that her son is not far from you in age."

"She's a fool if she thinks her son is fit to be a High Priest. I could name a dozen that would be chosen before him."

"I could too, but that's unimportant. You must understand that such sentiments are common in the courts. Everyone understands this, and so you have no reason to worry. You're beyond reproach."

"If a hundred talk, don't you think the chances are one will act. There is not much distance from the mind to the hand."

Aknadin clasped his shoulder. "Seto, paranoia is unhealthy, it will destroy you. You fulfill your duties without flaw. None of the other High Priests have issue with you. And most importantly, you have the Pharaoh's confidence."

If only those words with a warm gesture were enough to calm his mind. These issues had swirled within him for too long. Aknadin's reassurances were not new, he had many times considered them himself, and many times they had fallen short.

"Slander corrodes reputation. Who knows what others believe of me."

"Just behave as you do. Give them no blemish at which to point. You've carried yourself admirably for so long, and there is no doubt you'll continue to do so."

Seto's lips formed into something of a smile. It showed not joy but contempt. "Very well, Master! Let us hope! Let us be optimists!"

"Seto!" The wrinkles on the old man's brow and on the corners of his eyes and mouth became more pronounced. Those lines betrayed frustration. "What else could we do?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all!"

This conversation which had began at whispers had now reached barks.

Seto pursued, "Isn't it great? That my only course is to walk and hope I don't slip."

The two men, who were closer than any other among the High Priests, stood in a strange silence. Aknadin searching for words to console and Seto basking in the bitter vindication of the unanswered phrase. Seto shut his eyes and took a breath, "Forgive me, Master. When I think of these things my head ferments."

"It's fine." said Aknadin, though his face gave no such ease.

The two waited for the other to speak, when neither did, Aknadin took a few steps toward the desk and appeared to study the papyrus. It was a moment where it would be unfit to end a conversation but the means to continue it eluded them. The lull was interrupted by a knock. The two men turned to the door and then glanced at each other. Aknadin took hurried steps towards Seto.

"Could we have been heard?" whispered Aknadin.

"It's alright," declared Seto, his voice full. "The walls are thick. Outside a muffle would be caught, if even that."

Seto took five paces to the door and pushed the panel. Before him stood a well built man with shoulder length black hair. He wore a long strip of white cloth that wrapped around his legs and then passed diagonally from his waist to his shoulder.

Seto was the first to speak, "Karim."

"You were nowhere to be found so I thought I would check your bedchamber." Spotting the second occupant over Seto's shoulder Karim made a curt bow, "Master Aknadin."

Aknadin gave a nod to acknowledge the man.

"Did you need something?" asked Seto.

Karim laughed, "I wouldn't disturb you otherwise."

"Of course, what is it then?" Seto considered himself a reserved man, and aside from Aknadin there were not many with whom he conversed. Karim was in a strange spot— he was more than an acquaintance and less than Aknadin. Among the High Priests Karim was his partner, they were similar in age, and he was a pleasant man. Something of a friendship existed between them, though it was one that remained at an arm's length.

"A representative from a small town upriver had an audience with the Pharaoh this morning—"

"Ah, that's what it was."

"He spoke of some gruesome discoveries. In the past few weeks six corpses with gashes through the torso or holes in the throat were discovered. It's a tiny place. The people know each other and they are unknown to such violence. They worry that some wicked spirit lurks among them."

"And so the Pharaoh ordered the two of us to go over? That's a shame. Is it far? The weather is poor."

"It's only a few hours from the capital. Our entire procession will have horses."

"When do we leave?"

"Now."

Seto glanced at the hole that was his window. The rain had started. "The gods smile upon us."

Karim cast a sympathetic smile. "Let us hope it doesn't worsen."

"One would think Shada was suited for this work." said Aknadin.

This was in fact true. The Millennium Key could search souls, there was no better tool for the task.

"Shada was busy with some more interesting work." answered Karim. "He discovered a strong Ka, and he is occupied with that."

"How interesting." Seto said drily.

Strong Ka were uncommon, but not extraordinary. To call the event interesting would be to use the word lightly.

"No, this one is singular. On that Shada was adamant. I would say he was even worried. He spoke of a white dragon. I've heard of it in the whispers of peasants."

Without, there was no mark on Seto's countenance. His lips may have parted and he may have drawn a breath. Nothing of note. But within there was a tumult. The White Dragon. Yes, that is what he heard. That terrible night resurfaced. A decade must have passed since then, yet that scene was etched in his conscience. His village ablaze, his neighbours slaughtered, his mother burned, and himself caught by the arsonists. In that underworld the dragon appeared. It was radiant, blinding perhaps, and it erased the brigands as light does to shadows. Such visions produce a strong impression on a child. He believed it to be a god. For a time, at least. When he learned of Ka that dragon was robbed of its divinity, but in spite of that knowledge it was sublime. No, perhaps in his heart it became even grander. It was the difference between laying his salvation at the feet of nature or laying it at the feet of an individual. The second was more affecting. For a proud man it was a strange thought. And to who did he owe his gratitude? He did not know. He had his suspicions.

His mind did not focus on Karim as he talked, but he caught a few words:

"Some folk were beating her with stones. A witch they called her. It's fortunate Shada was passing then. He brought her to the palace."

A woman? There was another agitation in his soul. Could his conjectures have been true?

"This woman, how did she look?"

"I haven't seen her."

"Where is she kept?"

"In the wing of the palace by the gardens. Do you want to see the Ka?"

"No, I don't. Are we leaving now?"

In truth he did, more than anything. But his past was for himself. He spoke of it not even to Aknadin, and it would remain that way. There was no need to invite others into his thoughts. There was no hurry, he would satisfy his curiosities on his own.

"Immediately, the horses are ready."

"Very well."

Karim bowed to Aknadin and headed away from the chamber. Seto allowed Aknadin to pass under the doorframe. He pursued the two after setting the lock.

* * *

It was nearly midnight when he returned to the palace. He walked in the direction of his chamber. The day was more dull than difficult. As suspected, a man in that town did harbor a spirit. He was brought back to the capital and he would undergo the Millennium Trial at sunrise. Through the whole day, since he heard of it, his mind could not wander from the White Dragon. It was a raft against the tide. He could not steer his thoughts.

Curiosity takes many forms. In Seto it was an itch. Was it her? Could it be her? These notions had played through his head many years ago and now they recurred. When he learned of Ka in his books, that slave girl was the first he associated with the White Dragon. Despite the years that had passed her appearance was in his memory. It was uncanny. Her skin was paler than any Egyptian, she had the eyes of a foreigner, and colourless hair. If that dragon could take human form it would look something of the sort. But there was the question of nature. It was meekness against ferocity. What a contradiction! A personal Ka was born from the soul of the possessor, so how could she have such a monstrous creature? And if she did have it, how could common slave-traders take her?

These arguments battled in his mind. He would lean in one direction and then he would be pulled back in the other. A terrible pendulum! These warring ideas would not allow him rest. He grew impatient. He stopped before the palace's living quarters. It wouldn't be hard to confirm—he just needed a glance. He turned and began his way towards the wing. He walked under the flattened arches, past the soldiers' quarters, and across the courtyard. Rain had gathered water, and mud splashed at his ankles. It was a black night as there was no moon. The only light came from burning lamps resting on periodic posts. When he arrived at the wing which housed chambers for guests midnight had no doubt passed. By the sun it was a beautiful facade of masonry. In darkness it was a rectangular black mass, as ugly as it was dismal. The sentry that stood by the entrance would have been asleep had he arrived some minutes later.

"Who is this?" the man demanded, "Show yourself!"

As Seto stepped into a discernible range the sentry straightened, "P-Priest Seto!" he saluted.

Seto walked by him without acknowledgement. How strange it must seem to appear without warning so late into the night? Regardless, he had no intention to explain his reasons to some outpost. As a High Priest it was his prerogative. He paced along the hall. He took a left turn and then a right. He ascended steps, walked a few dozen paces, met a wall, and he turned back. The chambers were all empty. The palace did not have many visitors in this season. Perhaps he should have asked the sentry where they kept this person. Just as he was about to retake his steps he spotted a guard standing at the corner of a corridor. He continued in that direction. The man was armed with a spear and he stood watch beside a shut door.

"Who's in there?" asked Seto.

The man flinched as he had not heard him approach. Like the first guard he saluted when he could see, and then he answered, "A woman."

"She must have a name."

"I don't know it, I was just asked to stand here."

"What for?"

"So she doesn't wander."

"Is it the one Shada found?"

He nodded.

Seto moved to pass the door. The guard held out his arm to block his path. "She is asleep, perhaps tomorrow would be better."

The man had an admirable nerve.

"It's fine, I just need a glance."

"Oh, well—"

Before the guard could finish Seto had penetrated the chamber. The man did not protest. The slanders on his name made others wary of him. At times he appreciated the effect.

The room was immense, far too big for a lone occupant. This extravagance was measured. What better way to show the kingdom's power than to drown visitors in its riches? An oil lamp sat on a stand in a far corner and it cast a dim light. It did little to illuminate the den. The blackness engulfed the flame. Seto seized the lamp. Without it he was blind, with it he could see could see an arm's length before him. He saw the movement of a shadow. His eyes followed it, but in the obscurity it vanished. He walked as a blind man would, feeling the ground at every step. He waved the lamp to extend its reach. He stopped. A chill ran through his skin. Face to him was a phantom. It had a pallid complexion, a sickly thinness, and unkempt hair falling over the face. All features were colourless besides the eyes. And what the eyes had in colour they lacked in life. In them he saw a vague weariness, one that an interrupted sleep alone could not answer. He shuddered. This was no phantom, this was the woman!

"It is you!" he said.

She did not stir. He did not even know if she heard him.

"What is your name?" he asked.

No reply.

"You were that slave girl."

Silence.

"Those bandits! In the village! That creature was yours, wasn't it?"

She blinked.

"It has to be! I am not wrong, it was you!"

She blinked twice more. Her lips parted. Still, she uttered not a sound.

"Speak!"

She took a timid step towards him. She tightened her eyes, she rubbed them, she squinted.

"Woman, are you deaf? Are you mute?"

At once her eyes grew. They were large, round, and blue. A wave of colour passed over her face. It could have been compared to the opening of a flower at dawn. Her lips, her eyes and her brow smiled with one accord. It was hard to say which was more radiant, the burning oil or her visage. She whispered with the voice of a bird: "Se-to?"

* * *

There was a conflagration in her mind. Her breath was shallow. Her lips quivered. Was it possible? Could a dead man live? In order to grasp the force of her thoughts it is necessary to return to the events of that night, and to consider them amidst the landscape of her mind and among the scenery of her world.

She belonged to that class that has existed in all great cities through the ages, the one that made priests blush and honest folk turn away, she was among the children of the street. What are these children? A bit of everything. Lost youth, abandoned babes, runaway urchins, in a word, unfortunate children. The roads were a callous orphanage, they adopted all and cared for none. Abject poverty was the common trait among them, and this was one of the few. They came in all forms: boy or girl, robust or frail, solitary or social, and so on. How did they sup? Who knows. Perhaps on some crumbs or herbs or on the occasional purloined fruit. Perhaps on trash. Where did they sleep? It could only be imagined. Beside a wall, under a cart, among the straw of farms, there were many such beds and none of them enviable. In society they were the closest to animals; they were capable of the sweetest gestures of sympathy and also of feral barbarism. At one end of the boulevard a boy could share his onion, the only food he held that day, with two younger shrimps. And at the other end, some unhappy scamp would be cudgelled because he had pillaged a garbage heap that as not his to pillage.

This was the world in which she roamed and she could not recall how she entered it. She possessed an unlucky combination of traits for a creature of this jungle. Her timidity began her solitude and her incongruous aspect completed it. She was an outcast among outcasts. How is it that one such as her could survive? It is hard to say. Human tenacity must be given some credit, though it is suspected that chance has a larger share.

She, along with those of her breed, that is to say those of the street, had one principal foe: necessity. Hunger, thirst, and weather were their first persecutors. It was a battle that renewed each day. Somehow she limped through the years, usually with her stomach wanting, beaten by the sun, drenched by the rain, sometimes bruised, but alive.

One night, in the darkness where these events often unfold, she was found by another persecutor: slavers. Orphaned beggars were ideal targets for these traffickers. Who would miss them? Not their relations as they had none, nor the city as they were embarrassments. Necessity can be resisted to some extent, the gut can be ignored and heat and cold endured, it is not so with slavers. They were less forgiving of defiance.

And so this girl, innocent of any crime, was passed from the callousness of society to its wickedness. She was so undeserving of this misfortune that she would have been in the right had she called to account the gods. But she made no such complaints. She accepted her lot as the natural order things, with head bowed, shoulders slumped, with few words, and with a darkened horizon. Her heart did not curse her luck nor her captors, in it there was a deep exhaustion alone.

Having walked through this world without a friend, what else could she feel but confusion when on a night she was offered a hand by a boy no bigger than her yet who she remembered as a giant. After he pulled her to the horse's back, and as she realized he sought to bear her away from the slavers, what chance did she have to resist the intoxicating metamorphosis of confusion into joy? And he succeeded! She had hardly met this seraph when she had to turn to wave goodbye. He went in the direction of his village and she towards the town. And when she turned round for a second time only to see the boy's village on fire, what tremor must have tore through her soul? He had brought her salvation and she had brought him ruin.

When she had somehow found her way to the town, which was in panic as its sister was burned, she clasped the leg of the nearest man and pointing in the direction whence she came she cried "A village is on fire!"

"We know! We know! We saw! Some of our men are rushing there."

"Is anyone alive? There must be!"

"How should I know? Wait for the riders to return."

She waited by the gate of the town. The returning horses brought the following words: "No survivors." Her heart was rent. Hours ago she had experienced joy she had not known existed, and fate not happy with this turn, had then shown her new depths of anguish.

He had given her freedom and then he was thrown into a pyre. He had inflicted on her a savage wound; he had craved his name into her soul. She returned to the life of the street as there were no other paths before her. Her life was as it had been except she had one more possession: a memory. She guarded it in a corner of her heart. And there it stayed. Years passed by. It is said that a sensation is dulled by time. It was not so for her. It is true that she swam in those memories less often as she aged, but they retained their sharpness. When she would be woken in the middle of the night by blows for having unknowingly slept on a straw pallet that belonged to another, she would think as she fled with aching limps and face: "How different those hands were from those that pulled me from that cage."

And when, starving, she would plead with a baker for a morsel of bread, only to be refused, she would think to herself: "I am not even deserving of a morsel of bread from a store of a thousand. So what does that say of the one who gave me his life?"

And thus she thought as she lived. A soul needs light to survive, just as a body needs nourishment. A soul deprived of light decays and becomes horrible. Receiving no rays from the world, she subsisted off the radiance of a memory. Every blow from without made that singular act brighter. It was the sad parasitism of joy on misery. It was gratitude brought to an extreme. It had become exaltation.

Returning to the events of the story, awoken from her sleep and it the obscurity of the den, it was this consecrated face that she recognized. Having painted the picture of her past, it would be fair to leave the veil over her mind at that moment. Some emotions reach an unintelligible pitch. They ought not to be untangled as in the process something of them will be lost. It was a fever and a tempest, and that is all that will be said.

The man before her spoke, but she did not hear. She was adrift in reverie.

He pursued, "Listen! Answer me!" There was no effect on her aspect.

"What a bizarre woman." he said aloud. "I must be the first to have seen a phantom become a statue."

At last her tumult settled on a question,—

"How are you alive?" she whispered.

He cast her a strange glance. "I don't understand you. What is your name?"

"Your home was burned."

"So you remember me? Then you spare us some time. Give your name."

"And you along with it."

"Clearly not. Your—"

"How?"

"You should know better than I."

The insinuation went past her grasp. He waited for her reply, but she stood silent. His eyes travelled along her profile. By degrees his brow became severe. Then at once he gracelessly clasped her wrist and pulled her arm toward the lamp.

So implicit was her admiration that she did not blink. He could have pulled a blade in the terrible red light of the flame and she would not have flinched.

"Fine!" he said. "Hide your name if you wish, but answer this: why would allow yourself to be battered with rocks? Look at these purple gashes and black swells. Are you so foolish that you think stones can't kill? I know the White Dragon is yours. Why didn't you chase them away?"

The White Dragon. These words were the chill of the world on the dreamer. She ardently shook her head. Her lips moved but not a word escaped.

"No, no, no!" she wished to say, "You're wrong! I'm not a witch!"

"Why do you shake your head?" he said, "Shada confirmed it. And I saw it myself on that night."

She continued her fierce and wordless denial. That creature haunted her. It brought her so much grief. And worst of all, she had no memory of it. It is unfair to be charged for a crime of which you are ignorant. She had been denounced many times before, but she couldn't think of anything more terrible than to be reviled by the one she idolized. The being, whose back she had enshrined in her heart, would turn and say "You monster."

Yet, wasn't he right? There were convenient blotches of mist in her memories. Something must have lurked in that veil. Besides, even if she had not seen it she had felt its breath. A soul could snarl. Her vision grew indistinct. There was a wetness in her eyes. The man let go her arm and took a hurried step back. "Ah, no," he stammered, "I didn't mean to startle you." He watched her intently. He continued—

"I suppose it's late, and I upset you. I will take my leave. Thank you, I will say it even though you deny your act, and goodbye."

She was perplexed. That was all? She feared his condemnation, and instead she received his grace. She had braced herself for the blow, and she received the caress.

"I am a fool." she thought, "I doubt that noble head is even capable of meanness."

The man had turned his back towards her and he stepped towards the door. She was seized by a sudden courage. The last time he had parted it was from the world. She caught the tail of his robe between her thumb and index finger and gave it soft tug. He halted and watched her over his shoulder. This time the puzzlement was his.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To my chamber."

"Is it far?"

"No."

"How will you get there?"

"Through the courtyard."

"No, I mean, how will you leave this room?"

His expression said her words were nonsense, but he answered regardless: "Through that door, how else?"

"But won't that armed man bar your path?"

"Why would he?"

"Because he bars mine."

He stared at her. The sense of her words trickled into his mind like liquid through a sieve. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. And then at once his shoulders shook with a soft chuckle.

"He stands there on orders. Does he displease you?"

"Ah, no, he's very kind. He always fills that jug with water. And many times today he gave me a plate with bread and onions and meat. There was so much I could never eat it all. It was very good of him." She cast her eyes towards the ground, and added in a low and doleful voice, "But I'm stuck here. I feel as if I'm in a cage."

"I see," said the man, "very well, I owe you at least that much. I'll have you released, though not tonight as all are asleep. I'll settle the matter at sunrise."

His tail slipped from her grasp and he went out the door. He stopped at the threshold.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Kisara."

"Then, until tomorrow."

* * *

The moon was on its descent when he returned to his chamber. He lay on his bed but he could not sleep. All worked against him. The air was moist, the heat not much better than the day, the night was closer to the hour he woke than the hour he slept, and worst of all was his preoccupation with that woman. Her thoughts were opaque. She was an enigma.

He turned to one side, sat up, walked to window, then to his desk to light his lamp, he glanced at the papyrus with the history of Tanis, he scanned without reading, losing interest he returned to the bed and shut his eyes.

* * *

He was roused from a semi-unconsciousness by a knock. He ignored it. There was a second knock. With lethargy his eyes moved from the vault to the window. The sun had hardly risen. The rap against the door was persistent. He dressed himself in his robes and then answered it.

"What is it you want?" he asked the unlucky guard before him.

The man bowed low, perhaps to alleviate his offense, and then straightening he said,—

"The Pharaoh requests your presence."

"So early? What for?"

The guard, armed with the traditional spear and dressed in the common skirt, had his eyes riveted to the floor. He had a companion with him, who was of the same lot, but larger and more brawny. His head too was inclined as if from some invisible force. Neither answered.

"Well?" persisted Seto.

"Ah, I don't think—" the shorter man faltered, "we were told little."

Seto glanced from one man to the other. "Let us be off." he said when they added nothing, "I suppose it must be worth something since it comes with such haste."

* * *

There was a throng of courtiers outside the great wooden double door of the throne room. There was an indiscernible buzzing among them. The presence of courtiers before this hall wasn't an uncommon sight, but so many at this hour was unnatural. The pale light of the emerging sun lent them a mystifying air. It was a congregation of well dressed and jewel-incrusted hounds. As he approached he was seen by one, and then two, and then five, and in proportion a hush passed over the group. They did not greet him, neither did he them. As he passed he heard some gracious words from the more bold among them,—

"I had said it, didn't I, Aya?"

"It is no good to invite some upstart into the palace. Who knows what King Aknamkanon was thinking."

"He is still so vain."

"But is it true?"

Seto watched only ahead. The throng parted to let him pass. He felt malevolent gazes upon him. The words were louder than he remembered them, and the faces stood closer. It was as if the shadows, invigorated by a new confidence, encroached. A hand clasped his robe. Seto swung around to meet the offender. The crowd drew back. The offender was not to be seen. A small slit opened between the great doors. The hall invited him alone. He passed under the frame and the entrance closed behind him.

It was an immense rectangular space. The four walls were erected by the finest masons in Egypt, and after the masons the sculptors had their turn with the stone. Just inside the walls a colonnade formed a second rectangular perimeter. At the head of the hall, opposite the main entrance, stood a dais. On this dais was mounted a mighty throne fit only for the one who was a bit more than a man but not quite a god. The entire chamber was a pale brown, it was such that in a certain light it can be mistaken for yellow, and by the peasant mistaken for gold. Between the dais and the entrance was a vast and flat space. There was no furniture or obstacles, and here the Pharaoh's audience and vassals stood or knelt as was appropriate.

On this morning the hall had no courtiers, no pleaders, and not even its sentries. It was an eerie emptiness. At the far end he perceived seven figures and a curious sight. The Pharaoh sat on his throne with his back hunched, his head bowed, and his fingers pressing the bridge of his nose. Some paces away Aknadin was locked in argument with Mahad. They threw wild gestures and their faces betrayed indignation. Solomon, the vizier, appeared to want to interpose between the two. On the other side of the throne Shada and Karim discussed some topic, with less heat but with no less gravity. Isis was alone as she paced forward ten steps with eyes riveted to the floor, then back the other way, then forth again, and so on. Evidently whatever she contemplated had some weight.

His entrance had a magnetic effect. All words ended, all movement stopped, and all eyes were drawn to him. The young king sprung to his feet. "Seto!" he said.

Seto made a curt bow. "My Pharaoh," he returned, "I see I am the last. Anyways, there must be some considerable matter given these abrupt summons. Let me hear it. My escort knew little."

There was a shuffling of uneasy glances. Mahad was the first to step forward.

"During the night you were at the residence of visitors." he said.

"What does it matter?" retorted Seto, "Nothing forbids it." There was a sharpness to Seto's remark. He was among that strain of men that jealously guard their world. He wanted others to know nothing of himself except that which he communicated.

"There was a murder within those walls."

Seto felt as if a rod had bashed the back of his head. His mind lost its footing. "That woman!" was his first thought.

Mahad continued—

"The corpse was found prone on the stone floor. A single cut through the neck had done it. It's a shame at that age. The governor of Karnak will be upset."

Seto seized those last words as a falling man would seize a projection.

"The governor of Karnak?" he repeated.

"Yes, after all his younger brother was murdered under the Pharaoh's roof."

Seto regained his poise. "Who is criminal responsible?"

"None have been apprehended."

"What? Why not? Some savage spilt blood on these sacred grounds. He spits on the Pharaoh. We will find him at once. Who are the suspects?"

"There is only one." replied Mahad, "And it is you." An anxious movement passed through the assembled figures.

"Ha!" exclaimed Seto, "I didn't take you for a jester, Mahad. You have the knack for it. But let us be serious. This is an important matter."

"This is no jest." he said. The severity never parted from his mien.

Seto turned from one face of the assembly to the next. He looked for any hint of a laugh. He found only various shades of concern.

"Nonsense!" he cried, "I happen to find myself at a cursed place at a miserable time, and you dare name me, a High Priest, murderer? You've gone mad! And the rest of you, what do you say to this?"

Mahad's tone rose in proportion to his. "Believe me, Seto, I would deny it if I could. But look at the fatal weapon. It is there, look at it." He pointed to a small wooden box at the foot of the dais. It had no lid and no edge was longer than a forearm."

Seto rushed to the ominous container. When he stood over the box and discerned its object, his expression became pallid.

"You see?" said Mahad, "It is not fair to call us mad. Isn't that dagger yours? The blade corresponds to the wound. It was found in the courtyard."

The object which had produced such terror in Seto was in fact a dagger. Its blade was no longer then from the base of the palm to the tip of his long finger, and its handle was wrapped in a worn blue cloth. Seto stared at the weapon as if absorbed. Within him was a swirl of questions followed by answers, and understanding followed by confusion.

"I have been snared!" he exclaimed as he snapped from his trance, "The blade is mine but I didn't wield it. I thought I had innocently lost it several weeks ago. But no! Some devil had taken it!"

"Forget a devil," said Mahad, "last night the sentries admitted no man but you."

"Then it was the sentries!"

It must be noted that Seto had not slept that night. His mind was weary. A fresh head would be hard-pressed to defend against these damning blows. A fatigued mind floundered.

Mahad looked on with a pitying glance. "It couldn't have been them. The knife was found in the courtyard and the sentries of that building did not leave their post. Their peers in the vicinity could attest to it."

Aknadin was trembling and his complexion became redder at every moment. At last he burst, "A thousand possibilities Mahad, and you pick the most obvious! My Pharaoh, listen. You know Seto is infamous among our finest people. There are as many roads to this crime as he has detractors. And he has many."

"Yes," said Mahad, "there could be a thousand hypotheses but there is no evidence for these winding roads. Is it honest to ignore the glaring marks because they are inconvenient? What would the governor of Karnak say, no, what would the cities say if we brush off murder because we are acquainted with the murderer? I don't cherish my position as accuser. But one of us must do it for integrity's sake. Believe me Seto, I would expect you to do the same if I stood there and you stood here."

"Can't some Millennium Item divine if he tells the truth?" ventured Karim.

"Humiliation upon humiliation!" cried Seto. His mind was his sanctuary more hallowed than any temple. The idea of it being laid bare made him furious.

"As I was saying," replied Shada, "it is impossible. First formality has its say as a High Priest is worth as much as a noble. It would be distasteful for a man of his rank. And then, more prominently, there is the dilemma of magic. We, the seven guardians, have all read a few tomes on sorcery. Could any of you list, with any certainty, what little tricks I can perform? The same is true for us all." Shada surveyed those around him. "I see I am losing you. I mean to say that there are personal spells that can induce a short lapse in the memory of the caster. It would be unwise to rely on a Millennium Item to try a High Priest."

Aknadin and Mahad resumed their quarrel. Karim and Shada continued to converse.

Like an animal Seto had made a wild exertion when he realized he was entangled. And then, discovering the firmness of the bonds he had fallen into an impassibility. He only half heard the words of the priests around him against the frenzy of his thoughts. He was finished. Why did this happen? What wrong had he done? Gloomy ideas passed through his weary mind. A sombre haze fell over his visage.

He caught a voice, it was that of the Pharaoh. "That's enough!" the king uttered, and the hall fell silent. He continued—

"I do not want this to be true, but fairness must be upheld. Regardless, we are too close to the event to see it clearly. Let us wait ten days and then we'll convene on this issue once more."

"My Pharaoh," spoke Seto, "I am your loyal servant, on this day and on my last."

The Pharaoh directed at him a significant look, and then he nodded.

What could he have meant by those words? At first glance they were an appeal to the final judge of Egypt. One word of the Pharaoh could deliver him or destroy him. To an observer they may have appeared a desperate attempt to curry a bit of favour. But it can be proposed that there was a more profound sense to them. It may have been the cynical utterance of a man who saw only darkness before him, who could imagine the walls of an oubliette or perhaps even the platform of a scaffold. In brief, in those words was the abject attestation of a man convinced that the scale would lean against him.

The gathering was dismissed. Seto departed with this tragic mind.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

I saw the Memory World arc on T.V. when it aired many years ago. Over a decade later, I somehow had the urge to write a small story in that setting. I suppose it is because I crossed an article mentioning the curtailing of Priest Seto and Kisara's story, and the diluting of the feud between Priest Seto and Atem due to the author's deadline. I hope you enjoyed reading, and let me know what elements you liked or disliked. Also, don't feel the need to be restrained in your critiques either. I appreciate them all as they inform me where my writing needs work.

I've written until chapter two so expect to see that in a few days after some revision. I found the cover image some time ago, but I couldn't find the artist responsible. If anyone knows the source, just let me know so I can credit them. Then, until next time.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

An hour had not elapsed during the conclave, but the story had diffused far into the palace, and likely even further. When Seto emerged from the throne room the faces at the entrance had tripled. Curious gazes, sneering mouths, and pointing fingers were all before him.

If the dregs of society and the gentry could have one common interest, it would be wretched spectacles. Witnessing a fall from grace was among the most pleasurable diversions. Confused and excited men and women vied with their neighbours, battled shoulders, and leaned on the points of their feet to get a glance at the infamous character.

Seto walked mechanically in the direction of his room. He took turns without thinking and he looked without seeing. Around him was an inescapable murmur and bursts of sardonic applause. Occasional shouts pierced the buzzing—

"Look at that scowl! 'Tis the face of a villain!"

"Why does he walk free of bonds? Was he pardoned?"

"Ingrate!"

He heard none of this as he had retreated too far into himself. When he had found himself in his chamber—and he could not recall the path he took—he shut the door, tore off his robes, and threw them to the floor. He collapsed on his sole chair. He bent his head and held it in his hands.

There comes times when a man tallies the acts of his life in an attempt to fathom how he has reached some inexplicable juncture. Let us follow to shed some light on the contemplations and convulsions of this feverish head.

He was convinced, with as much conviction as a mind could hold, that his crime was not murder but his birth. He was born of a peasant mother and a phantom father. It was an ancestry which in a High Priest shocked good taste. He felt no shame to hold his mother's blood, but others felt it on his behalf.

His mother, that dear woman, was not long in his world. Since youth he was always of a serious and thoughtful disposition, but when he first felt the cold wind of society without the warmth of his mother, a shade of severity was introduced to his character, both towards himself and towards others. Providence looked meanly upon him, and so to spite it he sought to raise himself. He furnished himself a seat in a school by means of a couple jewels he salvaged from the wreck of his home. He studied theology, the arts, and history. He pursued knowledge with a single mind. He denied himself friends and he preferred the company of text. He was always the first to be seated before the rostrum, and he was always the last to depart. Within years he had placed his name among the academy's finest.

He was a commoner and a sober dreamer, and as such in his most flattering fantasies he envisioned for himself a position as some minor official or some small temple priest. Ability did not carry the weight of blood.

When he received word one day that Pharaoh Aknamkanon sought to make of him a High Priest, the effect was of a bolt of lightning. It was the sort of crimp in the social fabric that could only be produced by the hand of God, or by a decree of the Pharaoh, which was just as potent. He leapt on the outstretched hand despite popular grumblings. How often did the heavens let down a ladder for a man?

He wondered grimly if this was the fatal turn. Was he so blinded by the radiance of that height that he did not perceive the skeletons and snares that lurked on the other side? Today, seeing the terminus of that road, did he have remorse for that choice? At this thought his mind cried out,—"No!"

It was his right to accept a post that the Pharaoh offered, but more importantly, he vaguely believed, then and even now, that it was his duty. Pharaoh Aknamkanon was always known as a friend of the low. In appointing common blood Seto felt that the old Pharaoh wanted to make of him a representative of the small to the great. Perchance that kind king wanted to quietly say to the illustrious people of Eygpt,—

"Look! Do not despise them! They are just as capable as you."

Would it have been good to deny this solemn charge? Of course not!

He was never so bold as to ask Aknamkanon of his motives, but he carried himself as if they were true. The eyes on him were more severe than on any other priest, and so in turn his austerity grew. He devoted himself to Egypt, to Aknamkanon, and when he passed, to his son. He took part in feasts and fetes only as tradition obliged. His eyes lingered on no woman as he had taken the country as his wife. When need did not summon him, he immured himself in his chamber and threw himself on volumes of thinkers and historians. In his mind a zealous pursuit of knowledge meant he could better serve his king.

In that era rumour was quick to sprout and isolation entailed suspicion. His reputation among people, perhaps prodded by malign hands, blended between that of a learned man and a pursuer of the occult.

He trembled with anger. If he removed his hands from his head he may have found strands of hair in his fists. He had measured every step to avoid reproach, and yet that outcome he wished to never see appeared before him with a face more hideous than he could have imagined.

During this somber rumination not once did he entertain the idea that ten days hence the judgement would give him justice. At times of distress thoughts tend to follow the inclination of character. Seto was of that breed that is resistant to hope, and perhaps even contemptuous of it. What was more likely, he asked himself, that he could trace invisible threads, throw aside false screens, and pull the cabal into the light, or that in ten days he would not know more than he knows today and he would stand tongue-tied before the inquiry?

His greatest source of impotence was that he had no direction to aim his mind or his rage. His fingers could not count the number of persons that would take joy from his ruin. All the malicious faces he had ever seen appeared now as a miasma. As he sunk lower into despair, he felt more and more that it was not a human intellect that sought to drag him into the abyss, but an intangible and unanswerable force. One side of this battle was hidden in the shadows, under which may have lurked half of Egypt, and on the other end was a man. It was lonely and bleak to be the man.

In fairness, the brush of distrust which he passed over every wall of the palace and every face within it, he did not dare bring near the High Priests, and especially not near the Pharaoh or Aknadin. It could have been respect or blind faith, but no ill-thoughts of them crossed his mind. Even for Mahad, his most vocal persecutor of the morning, he felt little bitterness. He understood it was reason, that cold mistress, that pointed him as the culprit. It was a cruel entanglement where the ones he trusted most would be the ones who—advised by mock proof—ultimately condemned him.

Enraged he swept his arm across his table. Brassware tumbled to the ground. The clatter of metal against stone pierced the silence.

"Ah! I already hear the rattle of chains!" he said.

He sunk lower in his seat as he hunched his back. "What could I do?" he muttered.

His thought turned towards the Pharaoh, that beacon of virtue. He said with renewed vigor,—

"He will have sympathy, no doubt. I will petition for time!"

His hopes crumbled as quickly as they had grown, and his scowl returned.

"What good are ten more days?"

He racked his head. His body convulsed with anger and grief. Then all in a flash, amidst this turmoil, and unsettling thought occurred to him,—

"How could the law be sacred if innocence was not?"

This fatal question had the effect on his conscience that a drop of wine would have in a cup of water. It diffused into every pore. Novel perspectives dawned on him. Pride is a creature within man which appears at times as an august lion and at others a hideous hydra. At this moment he felt that monster stir.

"I must escape." he uttered.

Some ideas are more alluring when examined only under a dim light. He reasoned, rather naively, that flight may even vindicate him. Lips can remain mute for several weeks he told himself, but after months or years some hint was bound to escape the hermetic seal. Perhaps, unwittingly, he was more persuaded by the cynical joy he took from the thought that he would at least deny any plotter the satisfaction of the knowledge that he was rotting in a damp cell or the grave.

He set his mind to his designs. The shocks of the day followed by the internal storms had unfortunately eclipsed the frail girl he had met in the night, who waited upon him since dawn.

* * *

No doubt, dear readers, you can recall the throne room where the pivotal audience unfolded. The fresh light of the morning had expired and in its stead was a gloom. Obscurity lends a sinister aspect to ancient architecture. The demons and beasts carved in stone jutted from the walls. The eyes of these monsters appeared to have a glow. One would have pronounced them alive and declared the wall a gate of hell. As the eye passed along the wall, there could be distinguished in the thickness of the stone innumerable fissures. the smallest were the size of arms and a few were as immense as trees, with the roots branching horizontally along the floor and branches climbing along the vault. The splendid colonnade, which hitherto bore proudly the ceiling, lay in tatters. The least affected pillars were marked by clefts, as if vandals had brought chisels pell-mell upon them. The worst of them had forking cracks running up their height, some had even toppled from their base and shattered.

Two lone figures could be perceived in the murky wreck. One stood on the steps of the dais and the other was in the centre of the once fine hall. Shadows fell over their aspects, but no face was needed to know their names. The first was Pharaoh Atem and the second was Priest Seto.

Erect in front the Pharaoh was a creature of imposing stature. The dimness shielded it from sight. On the other side, before Seto, hovered a radiant white dragon. It was imposed as if in relief against the darkness. The two creatures faced one another, and so did the two men.

As the eye acclimatized to the obscurity, the horror redoubled. There could be seen projecting from the many heaps of rubble or sprouting from underneath slabs of limestone, human legs, arms, or even pates. These hideous cairns would not have ill-fit on the banks of the lake of fire. Between a fallen column and the angle of a step there was a row of bisected bodies. The most frightening feature of the ruin were the blackened cadavers that strayed so far from human semblance that one would have said they were thrown into a pot of molten lead.

Isis awoke with a start. Her eyes were wide and her damp brow fell on her hand. She trembled.

"What on earth?" she muttered, "A dream?"

This first explanation was challenged by an unusual warmth across her neck. The tips of her fingers traced her necklace. A heavy and black cloud drew over her horizon. Her heart compressed.

"No," she whispered, "it was a vision."

She leapt to her feet with the air of one bearing an oppressive secret that must be expelled. Her first instinct was to gather the priests and the Pharaoh and disclose the oracle. Her second instinct was to freeze. She saw at her toes a precipice. She felt, with building dread, that one misstep and she would tumble headlong into the tragedy. Had she beheld that phantasmagoria a few days prior, she would have doubted her relic. Strife between the Pharaoh and Seto? Death and monsters whirling in a mad dance in a sacred chamber? "Nonsense!" she would have exclaimed and then with a turn of her arm would have tossed her necklace aside.

But she no longer had that freedom of disbelief. Through the chance twists of a single day that scene had dragged itself from the depths of the absurd. "Wasn't it possible?" she asked herself. After all, as hard as it was to believe, Seto was perhaps tangled in unlawful threads. And then Shada had also innocently invited that dragon into the palace by succoring its host. And the most menacing of all details, mentioned in the testimony of a sentry, was the unknown relation between Seto and that girl. It was hard to avoid the thought that fate was carpentering a grim stage for that future act.

Isis paced mechanically about her room and an anxious contemplation consumed her. She had glanced the catastrophe waiting to seize them. She was the lookout on the mast who had spotted the reef on which their ship would crash.

The obvious course was to sound the alarm. Tradition mandated a council between the Pharaoh and his high vassals for any critical vision. But this quandary was so tortuous that she questioned whether it would be wise to fling all into the open at once. Seto was already waist-deep in a mire, and her revelation would throw on him a suspicion that may drown him heedless of justice. If he was guilty it would be deserved. But if he was innocent, what a tragedy! It is a fearful thing to hold a life.

Isis did not cease circling her chamber as it was her habit during pensive moods. A sight through the loophole of her wall caught her eye. At a far corner, at the extremity of the palace grounds, blossomed the gardens. The many colours that could be seen at this distance even as the sun faded spoke for the magnitude of the royal residence. A column of statuary representing the old kings of Egypt skirted a leg of the gardens. Behind that line of solemn figures was a long, rectangular, two-storied construction.

"And there's that girl," said Isis with her eyes riveted to the facade, "of whom I know nothing." At once an inspiration struck her. "She must play a part in this matter. Perhaps I can extract from her a clue."

She set out for the edifice she had gazed.

* * *

A shadow was seen scurrying along an unpopular corridor of the palace. Its legs were clad in an earthen fabric and a pale tunic draped over its top. The torches which lighted the path were few in number and at long intervals. Human faces were even less common than the flames. As the reader may have divined, the figure was Seto. It was that hour when the sun had retired for the night but man had not yet followed. It was not so late that a wanderer would arouse great suspicion, but it was sufficiently dark to render faces indistinct. A fugitive would be hard-pressed to find a better hour.

Seto's greatest obstacle were the initial steps from his chamber. As illogical as it may be, the lack of any watch at his door impeded him. He was struck by the understanding that his freedom had hitherto remained untouched even though there was enough reason to collar him until the trial. "That man is too gracious." said Seto. "He treats me as well as propriety allows, and then like a scoundrel I abuse his confidence." The Pharaoh's trust bound him more tightly than any rope. Braids of fibre could be cut against a sharp stone, a chain of trust must be ripped from the heart. "But it must be done," he reasoned, "even his faith would not stand against the pitiless blows of evidence. I save myself from suffering an injustice, and I save him from inflicting an injustice."

Vanity at times has an altruistic face and sophistry approaches under the guise of sense. This logic, to which he gave little resistance, was sufficient to sedate his conscience. Freed of that prick, his pace doubled. He dashed along the dark hall. There were archways and doors cut into the walls on either side. The path had the attitude of an irrigation channel feeding countless furrows. He darted into an entry indistinguishable from the dozens he had left behind. His steps slowed as the walls inclined towards him. The webs of spiders furnishing this claustrophobic lane spoke of its disuse. The bowels of the old palace, with its abundance of entrances and egresses, arteries and capillaries, had the sense of a labyrinth. An unversed man desiring to navigate them may find himself only steps from his start at the end of an hour. But Seto could not be counted among those who would fall to the intricacies of the palace. He played no mean role in the Pharaoh's defense, and the palace could claim the same. By virtue of this shared duty he had come to know the fabric of this behemoth. If he were given a canvas he could sketch from memory its circulation, he could point to the stations of the sentries, and he could outline the extents of the patrols. His diligence served him in this illicit affair.

His eyes showed him only the dark, and so he allowed his hands and the walls to guide him along this slender tributary. At length he emerged into a corridor. The rolling waves of a breeze could be felt. According to all appearances—a poor phrase given the obscurity—he was at the perimeter of the great building. Several dozen more paces and he would find an access to the courtyard.

From an unseen depth of the corridor he perceived a frightening sound: human steps. There are some noises which can only be caught by the unlawful ear. His muscles assumed a stone rigidity. "Do they emanate from behind?" he whispered, "Or are they in my path?" It is a grave question for an escapee. He willed his ear to divine their direction. Alas! He had only found himself amidst a sepulchral silence. "Confound them! They stop as I stop!" The mingling of the night, the muddied mind, and want of sleep provide propitious grounds for illusion. He could, in fact, have run in either direction and he would have met no living creature. Those unnerving steps issued from his overwrought head.

Of course, such reasonable verdicts eluded Seto. Some truths which are plain at a distance become unthinkable in the thick of the matter. Fearful of discovery, or worse, an ambush, he remained rooted to his spot. He resolved to win in patience, but it was his misfortune that his rival was a phantom unconstrained by time. The minutes slipped by, slowly or quickly he did not know, and as they did so did his firmness. Time prodded him from one direction, and prudence from the other. He yielded to the first. "To become inert during a criminal flight is no less unwise than sallying into peril. And I would rather fall a daring fool than a paralyzed fawn."

At once he broke into a run. He fast found the outlet of the corridor and he stumbled into the airy night. The palace's facade did little to help his peace, hence his pace did not wane. He cut through the footpaths until he met a hedge, he followed its shade with a bent back, and when it no longer served his destination he vaulted over to its other face. His breath was short but he took no pause. He skirted by a fountain, he availed himself of the cover of pillars, he darted into every shadow, and at length, with patches of his tunic nearly transparent, he had found himself at the extremity of the grounds. Behind him, owing to the distance and the dark, the royal buildings were now indistinct.

His pace relaxed and he slowed to a walk. He was taken by a terrible joy. He felt something of the fugitive at the edge of a prison. From this remote corner it was a small matter to slip into the city. Were it not for his severe nature his delight would have burst from his lips as a laugh. Instead he was content to raise his face to the black sky and draw a breath. On occasion the majesty of the firmament overwhelm a man. Such was this moment. The pale moon peeked from behind a curtain of cloud. Its rays, soft yet sublime, cast a gentle light on the world.

"And her!"

There was a subterranean movement within his depths. Pragmatism, which since the morning had led his thoughts as through a tunnel, was accosted by duty. Logic met against a higher truth.

"And her!" he repeated. "What of her? My flight was a perfect success, but I stand here with my word betrayed. She had done for me something so great, and had asked for something so little. And that little thing I left unanswered. How was there such a terrible lapse in my mind? Unrest led me astray! It is to that gentle face and that sweet soul I turn my back. Infinite creatures walk the earth, and of them all she is the one to suffer my ignominy. Did I climb to the peak of Egypt to be a wretch? No! A mistake! There is time yet!"

He turned and impulsively marched toward the residence. Little ground was crossed before qualms arrested him.

"And what good could I do now? My name is odious on these grounds. I could strive to lend her a hand and I may well infect her with my infamy. I should slink away with my disgrace if it would injure her less. Perhaps I worry without reason. She is the charge of the High Priests, and I trust they will not let harm fall upon innocence."

At a time, this though once crossed he would have found peace, but not at this hour.

"In the black of night I met her alone behind those fatal walls. No doubt the malicious wheels in every nook of the palace will find secrets where none exist. A cabal would be made of an honest encounter." He stopped, appeared to ruminate, and then returned to his haste. "Conjectures upon conjectures! An exercise in lunacy! But what if there is some truth? If I, a noble in all but name, could be made a cut-throat what assurance is there for a girl? She must be there disheartened, and I am here shamed! What was I thinking? I escape from the law of men, but if some ill-fate should betide her on my account, I will be condemned by the moral law." A troubled man cuts an awkward figure; all the skill and delicacy he dedicated to absconding, he now employed in the reverse course.

* * *

Few treasures are more valuable than reputation. The promise of a reputable man is heavier than the writings of a scribe. In the span of a decade Kisara and Seto had hardly shared a few hours, yet her thought of him surpassed the faith a parishioner may have held in his priest. After the appearance in the night and his quick departure she had retreated to her bed. She fell asleep with some trouble, it is true, but only as far as joy impedes rest. 'It will be settled at sunrise' he had said, 'then, until tomorrow.' His return was no less certain than the rise of the sun. She woke before dawn. Turmoil and elation are not different enemies of sleep. She sat on the pallet, one hand in the other, with a lovely serenity. "It is bad of me to be so impatient." she said.

Soon the light of the sun broke through the casements and illumined the fine interior. A stout sycamore table and a companion four-legged stool rested along the wall opposite her. The seat of the stool was covered with a brown leather. At each of the four corners of the chamber stood a pedestal carved with a serpent and the ibis, and each pedestal supported a different bust. Some scribbling were adjacent each bust—ostensibly to identify these esteemed figures—though they ill-served their purpose as learned Egyptians could recognize these heads by sight while unlearned Egyptians could not read. Kisara did not know these heads.

The chamber's sole door commanded her attention. It was shut but not locked. This she knew because the day before a gentle push from her was sufficient to turn the panel on its hinge. On the other side of the door was a conscript of the kingdom attired lightly in the common white. The following dialogue was had between the two strangers:

"Master Shada did not make me privy to your name, but he ordered your well-being."

"Shada?"

"The one who had you brought here."

Unclear of the setting and without a word at hand, she meekly nodded. "Could you point me to the square of Tanis?" she asked, "This place is unknown to me."

"It is not far, but would you be kind enough to remain in this chamber a while longer? Master Shada is beholden at the moment, and he will be displeased with me if you are gone when he returns."

"I cannot leave?" she asked.

"I am afraid I cannot allow it."

She gave outlet to a small frown, but then returned to the room without protest as it was her nature. This occurred the day before, the reader is aware of the encounter in the night, and today midday approached. Shada had not yet come, but that detail lay forgotten as she waited on Seto. She was absorbed in some idea. The sun reached its peak and it began its retreat. Her faith still did not waver. "I must have made of him a difficult request." she said. A few added hours were little trouble when the dead had just returned to life.

But as the light waned, so did her spirit. Dusk spread over the horizon and she had a terrible thought: "It was a dream." she said. "I saw a phantom in the night and I believed it was real. Even children would not have chased such a chimera." It did not occur to her that she had been deceived or forgotten, as it was more probable an apparition could converse than for Seto to be a villain.

Her eyes dropped with an air of dejection. She shook her head and a sad smile could have been perceived. At times a smile masks great hurt. Of course she did not ask the watch if a man had entered her chamber in the night; she did not want anyone to think her strange. The room grew dark and soon the only radiance issued from the lamps she had lighted at the foot of her bed. It must be said the watch outside her door, in spite of his rigidity, brought her everything when she asked for nothing. There could be found, arranged with care on the sycamore table, unused oil, uneaten fruits, unsampled juice, and a neglected volume.

Then the door turned. The unhappy heart rises for any change just as any blip on the horizon excites the stranded sailor. Kisara made out the head of the newcomer, but not the face. To get some sense of this grand chamber in the night a lighthouse can be imagined. The bed, flanked by two lamps, acted as the beacon, and the vastness around it was blanketed in obscurity. The figure approached the bed. It was a few steps from Kisara when it become discernible. She had hoped for Seto, and it was not he. Faced to her was a swarthy woman outfitted in a white dress. On her wrists were gold bracelets, at her stomach was a gold waistband, framing her face was an elaborate headdress, and at the angle of her neck was what appeared to be a metallic eye.

The woman spoke: "I am known by the name of Isis, my father and mother hail from Philae. And you are Kisara, that is what I have heard." Isis considered her audience, and then resumed,—"You appear displeased. I know I've stolen into your chamber at an untoward hour, but I hope you won't cherish the act against me." Here Isis broke off, doubtless to allow Kisara a word. Kisara did not speak. Isis became unsettled. For the reader's interest it will be noted that Kisara held no ill-will toward the newcomer, and, in fact, she would have found it difficult to harbor such thoughts. Her reticence stemmed from some mix of curiosity and disappointment.

Isis pressed on,—"What is your relation to Priest Seto?"

There was a glint in Kisara's eyes. She clasped her hands. "Ah! So he is real!" she cried with a sudden joy. "Did you know, I thought my fancies had become untamed. But you tell me otherwise. Oh, you don't know what good news you bring! This is a strange place where the light arrives at night. That eye about your neck, I remember seeing its likeness on Seto. It is clear now, he was obliged and could not come, and so he sent you in his stead."

"You confuse me." said Isis.

"I hadn't forgotten your question, but I don't know how to answer. He saved me."

"He did you charity?"

"Charity? I suppose he did. It was the greatest charity."

"What did he give to you?"

"His life."

"That's impossible!" said Isis with an air of stupefaction.

"No, no, it is true. I too would call myself a liar if it hadn't happened before my eyes. It was an unthinkable act, a divine selflessness, a generosity counter to nature. And to add, here you may doubt but I'm sincere, this unearthly gesture was performed by a creature that was hardly a man! And he somehow still lives! I don't understand it, but that is a minor issue. It would please me beyond all measure to render him some equal aid. But I know this is an unreachable joy as I understand my station, and from his dress have some idea of his."

There was a peculiar character to this conversation. As one woman grew more spirited, the other more unnerved.

"What could you do for him?" asked Isis, perhaps without thought, as one does when the mind is occupied upon a point.

Kisara's eyes fell. "I don't know." she whispered in her smallest voice. Had the room not been as silent as a tomb, she would have gone unheard. A tragic choice of words! Language at times plays mischievous tricks. Kisara meant uncertainty, but Isis, prejudiced by foresight, understood conviction.

By some unknown law tremors occur in groups. Their attention was pulled by noises on the other side of the door panel. They resembled voices. It was impossible to make out the words. Then, in what may well have conveyed a fall, iron resounded against stone.

"Oh no!" said Isis, and then the woman retreated to a corner of the chamber. The shadows hid her. At that moment the panel was pushed open.

"Seto!" exclaimed Kisara. Her tone was soft and surprised and infused with an ineffable radiance. This celestial sweetness of the warbler was directed at a dilapidated creature. It was the man from last night, on that she could make no mistake, but he was more different than he was the same. His ornate blue robe was gone and in its place was a tawny and thin tunic. It was stained by perspiration. His head was uncovered as his headdress was lost and not replaced. His brown hair stuck to his wet brow. His breaths were shallow and his eyes glanced every direction like some hunted animal. He began with a flurry—

"Listen you, Kisara—I mean, I don't have time. I fly tonight, right now even, so hear me well. You asked to be let out, but I didn't fulfill it, I couldn't rather, there is no need to burden you with reasons—there are many." He spoke such that the head of each word bumped into the tail of the last. "Shada brought you here when he came to your aid, so no harm should come to you, you have no need to worry. I think. Ha! I say that as I flee these wretched grounds! Some fine assurance isn't it? Ah, what does it matter? If you insist that this chamber is intolerable, I don't think it is, then I could lead you out these walls and leave you in the city's heart. From there you could go where you please. You are no criminal, so I doubt eyes will search for you. That is doubly true considering they will be searching for me." Seto passed his hand over his brow and shut his eyes. Fatigue was at his heels. "Don't ask me what is best. I don't know it. I don't even know what is best for myself. Ah, I forgot, didn't the folks without shower you with stones? Perhaps you should stay. Oh, there is too much too consider! I'm in no state for it! I've said what I can, and now my conscience is lightened, at least in part. Go on, decide—what will you do? It is all the same to me." He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder and then turned back. "What is with that face? You appear too untroubled. Hurry! Decide!"

He waited but she did not reply. His urgency was lost on her as she understood little of the matter that tumbled from his lips. With the most innocent air she turned towards the den's darkest corner—as she knew where Isis stood—in the manner that a spectator would glimpse at her neighbour to see if one among her rank has deciphered an incoherent address. If her thoughts had a voice the following would be heard,—

"Am I alone in my ignorance? Do you know what he says?"

Seto followed her gaze. His breath stopped and colour ran from his face.

"Isis!" he cried, "Why are you here?" He spun with a panicked face to every dim nook of the room, and then with a menacing tone he added—"You are alone."

Isis stepped forth from the shelter of the obscurity. "So it is true?" she said, "You are guilty?"

"I deny it!"

"Then why do you run?"

"To vindicate myself."

Isis was taken aback by his response, and after a moment she replied— "You are dazed."

"But I am not blind."

Isis shook her head. "Have you lost your sense? If you did not commit the crime then you are a fool. Don't you see that flight would be an admission of your guilt?"

"It will change nothing."

"How could you say that? The trial has yet to start!"

"The trial will condemn me."

There was a flash in her eyes. Her mien betrayed indignation. "By that you could only mean you are the murderer, or, as you will stand before the Pharaoh and the High Priests, you question our character."

"No, on both accounts. You are all admirable judges. I have no doubt the proper verdict will pass."

She stared at him intently for several moments, and unable to parse his thoughts she exclaimed,—

"Your words are all contorted! Be clear!"

"Hush! You are too loud."

She wrung her hands, then she whispered,— "Duty commands me to stop you."

Seto's eyes became savage and his brow turned livid. The burning oil cast a dim light on his countenance. This flickering glow made its lines and angles more horrible. If he were seen at that moment by passerby, they would have pointed and said 'That man is a criminal.'

"You rush to your death." he uttered, "And you will damn me too." He drew the Millennium Rod from a clasp on his waist.

Isis shuddered. Those words produced on her the effect of something inexorable. "It is true, in this cramped lair your Duos would overwhelm me. But if you are innocent, as you say, I have no reason to fear you. And if you are guilty—" Her voice trailed away. She took a breath and resumed,—

"If you are guilty, I will at least give an alarm before I fall."

"I must get away from here! Do not impel me down a terrible slope."

Their dialogue was burning, but their bodies were still and icy. Neither dared move. The two guardians of the Pharaoh had found themselves in a chamber of fumes, and the smallest spark would incinerate them both. At this moment, during this strained silence, what passed through these anxious heads?

In truth, Seto did not have the nerve to deal Isis a fatal blow. At the crisis he would falter. So it was his great fortune that the woman before him was motionless. For what reason did she not act? Had Seto's threat cowed her? Perhaps, but not likely. Isis was no coward and she would give her life to her country. Isis's limbs were shackled and her tongue was bound, not by the menaces of terrible face before her, but by the vision she had beheld. That scene, which she had divulged to no other soul, had never left her mind, and at this juncture it flared violently. She saw the carnage in all its vivid colours and fatal outlines. Isis would give her life for her duty, but did she have the right risk the lives of others? She could wake the palace and bring the unruly priest to his knees. But did she dare do it under the puzzled eyes of that silent observer? Did she dare gamble against fate? And did she have the audacity to say,—"Let come what may!"?

It was an immense burden, and Isis did not have rash blood flowing through her veins.

Kisara, the oblivious source of Isis' grief, quietly watched the exchange unfold. She had lost herself during Seto's initial tirade, and so she sought to draw some sense from this fresh dialogue. But as she knew nothing of the crime of the night or of the audience of the morning, as she had never heard of courtly machinations, and as she understood little of law and justice, she may as well have been grasping in the dark. At this time if she were asked what she made of the affair, she would have answered with a sweet innocence,—"What affair?"

Never were there two lives so dependent on each other yet so ignorant of their service. He, unknowingly, had for years warmed the soul of the drowning girl. And in turn she, with her wing, without the slightest knowledge, shielded the fleeing man from the talons of Egypt.

Isis's chin fell to her breast. "You won't listen to reason." she said with an air of dejection. "I will tell you again, stay! But if you insist on that course, then let the girl remain here. I vow on my honour and on the name of my family that not a hair will fall from her head."

"From your mouth those words have weight." he said. "Then I have no more business here."

Seto turned and took three steps towards the door.

"Wait!" cried Isis.

Seto turned his face. It had taken on a monstrous shade. "Quiet!" His voice was low and baleful. "What is it you want? My patience is thinning."

"Not you," she said and she gestured toward Kisara, "but her."

Seto's eyes followed. The sight baffled him. He had taken steps towards the door, but he was no further from the pale-haired woman.

"Don't follow me." he said.

"This is all very strange to me." whispered Kisara, "You two converse in a foreign tongue. I don't understand at all of what you speak. But I can see that you're leaving. Won't you let me come with you?"

"No."

"But you gave me the choice."

"Now I withdraw it. You are safer here. I have the word of a priestess."

"I am safe anywhere."

"That is a charming naiveté. But my decision is made. Goodbye."

"I'll be unhappy." she pursued.

"Unhappy but better off."

"Ah! I am convinced you are a spirit. Or that I am the victim of illusions. For the briefest moments you appear at sleeping hours and then you evaporate."

"I would prefer this day was an illusion, but it is not, and I am as tangible as you. "

She gave vent to a poignant frown. "But then if we part here," she whispered, "how will I find you again? I wouldn't know where to start."

"There is no reason for you to search for me."

"But there is."

"What is it?"

"It is hard to say. My thoughts tread on one another. I don't very well understand them myself. But they press me."

He intended to disappear from the eyes of the court. She, a lone woman, wouldn't have a chance to find him. He did not have the apathy to leave that supplicant face with an impossible task.

"You should rest." he said. "I doubt we will meet again. Goodbye."

She raised her large eyes to meet his and she cast a miserable smile. "Oh, there is wickedness at work! It is cruel of the gods to pull you from the grave, present you before me, only to throw the pall over you once more. I sometimes think they laugh. Be kind, please reconsider."

Her tone was soft, her words were plaintive, and her bearing was pleading. But in her eyes there was a fire. They were so incompatible with the whole that it was as if they were not her own. It is said that the eyes are a window into the soul, and through them he saw a ferocity. His blood seized to run and his skin shivered. He tore his eyes from hers. He may have stumbled. Just as the voice can sting, the gaze can consume. Had he not broken the sight he risked being swallowed. He turned away.

"Do as you please." he muttered.

She beamed. He went out. She quickly followed. Isis protested, but it was futile. Seto's conviction did not allow him to listen, and Kisara's joy had made her deaf. Isis ran after the two, but all was lost. The hall was bereft of life aside from an unconscious soldier, and all she saw was night.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

Here is the second chapter as promised. I thank you all for the readership.

I do want to continue this story and have an idea of its direction, but I'll admit I don't have any future chapters written at the moment. I am not a disciplined writer at all so you may not see anything for a while. I will apologise preemptively in case I leave this story without an end as I have a regrettable habit of coming across obstacles in the story and then losing enthusiasm. Anyways, thank you for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Seto and Kisara ran—him in front and her behind. The fingers of his right hand twined around her delicate wrist—a wise prudence as in the lightless halls she could not see the one who lead her, let alone her path. A descent here, a turn there, and soon the two had found themselves at the threshold of the residence. The exfiltration was in fact the infiltration in reverse, and so he moved with redoubled confidence. He was constrained only by his companion—her legs not being as long as his, nor her lungs as robust.

He crouched in the shade of a hedge and he figured a pause would serve them both—rest for her and reflection for him. He unfastened a waterskin at his waist, pulled the cork, and then extended the sac towards her.

"Drink." he said.

She clasped the skin with two hands and cautiously raised the aperture to her lips. She took a modest draught.

"How strange," he said, "there is not a ripple in the night."

Enough time had passed for Isis to raise a cry. He expected the peal of the horn, the rumble of rough voices, the stomping of boots, and the clamour of iron. When he took flight from that chamber he had expected to be fast made prey in a terrible hunt. When none of those scenes came to pass he was perplexed. "I don't know what keeps her," he said, "but I won't protest. Every added moment is a boon."

Kisara had followed at the insistence of her heart rather than her head. Her heart was content, but her head was confused. Hence she ventured a question—

"Why do you fear that woman? She did not appear unpleasant, perhaps she even seemed a little kind."

"You make a mistake. I have no fear of Isis—that woman."

"Then why do you run?"

"I don't run from her but from the country."

Seto regained his full height and he peered over the hedge. Satisfied by what he spied he motioned for her to follow. Kisara did so. He walked with quick steps and she emulated to the extent she was able. They took strange turns and inexplicable breaks, and all the while they met no other creature. The approaching ramparts outlined the periphery of the grounds.

Through the whole length Kisara had followed mechanically as her mind ruminated on his words. Having failed to draw any light from his remark, she pursued her question—though in a whisper.

"The night before you were dressed like a king, and now you move like a smuggler. Forgive my confusion, and it may not be my place to ask, but could you tell me a little more. I do not yet understand."

Seto continued toward the high walls that were the interface between the royal residence and the city. He spoke without turning his head. He addressed himself just as much he did her,—

"You do not know? Ha! You do not know?" He shook his head, "Ha! Ha! I'll tell you—you've blindly followed a fugitive! Don't think badly of me—it was not my intention to deceive. I just thought the matter was apparent. I see now that I had thrust the scene on you too quickly. But I had little other recourse."

Seto moved carefully at the foot of the great wall and Kisara did her best to match.

"And you must not think me a common criminal." he said.

"Of course not." she replied.

"Yes, as I am innocent."

"Oh no," said she with such tenderness, "so you were falsely charged."

"The very thing."

He declared himself to be innocent and for Kisara that was enough. The edicts of ten judges would have been hard-pressed to sway her idea. Unearned slurs and unjust denouncement were not foreign to her.

"Will they beat you if they find you?" she asked.

"Ha! Even in my wildest fancies I do not think I would be excused with so little a sentence. And even if I could pass with just that I would resist as I refuse to bear that undeserved disgrace. Were I to be collared it is more probable at that very moment my life was forfeit—either sluggishly and with neglect in one of the lower cells, or quickly on the scaffold. An enviable choice wouldn't you say?"

Here Seto laughed quietly, and then added; "But truly, it wouldn't be hard at all. I would say—'Egypt, keep your dungeon, I'll give you my neck instead.' Death is a hundred times preferable to the wretched life of a forever condemned. In either case I'll exist in a tomb—one while dead and the other while alive."

On the whole these were honest thoughts mixed in some part with bravado. He possessed the ardour peculiar to those who see the scaffold as a vague outline in the distance. Had that fatal instrument been before him he would have been more thoughtful.

The two absconders walked in a line; hence they did not see each other's face. The few glances they did exchange were under the cover of the darkness. Seto was blind to the effect of his utterance on the creature behind him. Had he seen her eyes fall and her lips part, had he seen the shudder pass over her frame, perhaps he would have offered some assuaging words.

"Come," he said, "we are nearly out."

* * *

In fact, Isis had not raised a cry for the fleeing priest. She dashed at once towards the Pharaoh's bedchamber, and any staff she encountered was ordered to fetch the other priests. The Pharaoh being a light sleeper did not take long to admit Isis. The other High Priests joined soon after. Karim, Mahad, Shada, Aknadin, Shimon, Isis and the Pharaoh stood in a rough circle several paces from the royal bed—urgency had not allowed them a more suitable venue. The help had procured a few more lamps to better illumine the room. Six stony faced listened as the lone woman spoke. Words broke from her lips in a flurry. A pressured vapour, trapped in a drum and desperate for egress, and at last finding one, would describe something of this scene. She described that bedlam painted by the necklace, that portrait of violence and shipwreck she witnessed as if in a fevered dream. She made note of the thumping of her heart even as she awoke and her thoughts thereafter. Here is how she described them—

"I need a scalpel, I reasoned, a sword would not do. The moment called for delicate hands, that is the idea that circled my head—that words were needed and not shouts. I desperately craved clarity."

She recounted her haste toward that fatal residence where that foreign woman was given a bed. An instinctive path, she told her audience, given the dragon in her premonition. "Until then," said Isis, "I had regarded the remarks of her paleness as inflations. But at first breath upon seeing her I even entertained the idea that she was a ghost born of my dream. We conversed a little. She was unnatural, I use the term in every sense, but she was not offensive. I received the impression of a sphinx, but one whose face is not unpleasant to the eye and whose voice is not terrible to the ear. It was the most disconcerting juxtaposition—to see the shadow of a lion emanate from the body of a bird. I am certain she shares a history with Seto but I do not know of its nature. I did not absorb all that she recited, being as I was, but I do recall vague mentions of some small act, some obscure meeting, some unpaid debt—ah! I'm certain she said more. Regardless, I failed to pierce further."

Isis gave detail of the sudden and chance intrusion of Seto, her unhappy effort to remain unseen, and the stormy moments that followed. "He eloped before my entreaties reached him, and that girl trailed his heel."

Finishing the account, Isis surveyed her hearers. The Pharaoh's eyes were wide. Aknadin's face assumed a sickly gray. No man spoke when she was quiet and an oppressive air settled over that chamber furnished so delicately with reliefs, wood, and ceramics. "At least a word!" exclaimed Isis, and without awaiting a reply she added—"You all look at me with hard eyes, but say something, please! I'll accept it all. 'She's blundered horribly. She should not have acted as she did.' you are likely thinking. And it is well, I have no shortage of self-reproach. But you must at least believe I had no wrong intent. As my limbs moved and my mind raced I had the country in heart."

The Pharaoh laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "There is no reason for your anxiety—there is no blame for you here."

"Oh!" she uttered with profound relief. She bowed low.

"Pharaoh," said Mahad, "your magnanimity is a fine thing but I do have words of reproach." He turned towards Isis, "When he got out of sight you should have sent word to the patrols and gates. Did you come here at once?"

"Yes, of course I rushed here!" said Isis, "Yes, I dashed with utmost haste."

"Then perhaps we can halt him yet." said Mahad. "There is a chance he has not slipped into the city." He marched towards the heavy door. Shada took hold of his arm.

"Mahad, a little deliberation." he said, "What of the necklace?"

"The necklace?" repeated Mahad. "It has shown us its secret and that is all. We know of it and it is easy enough to avoid. The swerve only asks for a bit of reason. Ma'at would have to sleep and the stars of the underworld would have to align for that dream to unfold."

"I have the dread feeling," said Shada in a grave whisper, "that they already have. How else could you make sense of these circumstances?"

"During your encounter, you said he gave you warning?" asked Shimon of Isis, "That you defy him at the risk of your life?"

Isis produced a slight and hesitant nod.

Mahad's fist trembled, and his anger seeking vent, struck the wall. The stone was little injured, but the flesh did not have the same fortune. "He is a monster then! Monster and murderer!"

"Settle yourself." said Shimon. "Whatever the case, the truth remains that you can give chase until the sun rises, you can block him at every turn, you can pen him without fail, but there is a real chance he'll eventually turn to face you. What then?"

"Then I'll face him!" exclaimed Mahad. "I'll meet his eye and say—'I apprehend you, Seto, for your betrayal of your duty.'"

"And should he resist?" asked Shimon.

"Then I'll treat him with a heavy hand of course! Why do you ask a question with so obvious an answer, Shimon? And you Karim, why do you grimace? You would let him make nonsense of every law for the sake of your friendship?"

"Seto is a talented sorcerer," replied Shimon, "one of the most formidable, in fact, from Tanis to Heracleion and from Aswan to Thebes. No doubt you are aware of this Mahad as you are among the few that can call themselves his match. But ultimately he is just a man and while his acts trouble me I fret more over that unknown quantity that has added itself to this storm. That girl, I mean."

There was a murmur of assent among some of the priests.

"A few have glimpsed her person," continued Shimon, "but the keenest eyes are yours Shada, as you have seen her soul. Lend us your insight, please."

"Insight?" repeated Shada. He did not reply at once and appeared to meditate on some thoughts. His brow furrowed and these moments, otherwise brief, became long for the priests pregnant with anticipation. Shada started—"I must apologize as I can't say much. It is true that my key produced for me an aperture into her soul, but it was only for a flash as I reeled back. Some of you have experienced, I am certain, those vivid dreams that turn to mist when the eyes open."

Shada squeezed shut his eyes—"I pray you, let me some time, and I will give you all that I can recover."

"Shada!" exclaimed Mahad, "He steals further into the city! Do you think these are trivial moments?"

"No," answered Shada, "but I believe clarity here is more critical than the clock. Still, there is some truth in your impatience. I won't keep you."

A soul is strangely perceived, and even more strangely described. Here is how he remembered it—

"I saw the infinite." Shada said in a calm voice. "I could not divine if it was the expanse of the sky into which I peered, or the depth of an abyss—a considerable difference, but small to the one who feels himself dissolve. Dissolve, yes! that is the exact phenomena! A clump of salt thrown in ocean would understand me. It is more awful even—the ocean is silent in its business while the soul is alive. My eyes were shut and seared by a brutal light, and I sensed my skin char as if in contact with coal. Being blind I nonetheless thought myself observed. I suppose I was seen an intruder, or a blemish, and some organic instinct sought to consume me. It was either a violent reaction to trespass, or a terrifying timidity."

Mahad regarded his peers, and then his sight returned to Shada. "The poor law!" he exclaimed, "That its guarantor should recoil at the hint of trouble!"

Shada's eyes flashed. "You are very unfair! You demand of me some description and I granted it. Tell me, what have I done to deserve your insult?"

"You imply an unwillingness." said Mahad, and gesturing towards the other priests he added— "And we all perceive it. I dare say the dragon has frightened you."

Shada took a menacing step towards Mahad and grabbed him roughly by the shoulder. "Retract!" said he, "You ascribe falsely! A good man does not fling mud!"

"Enough! Enough!" cried the Pharaoh, "I despair over Seto! Be good fellows and spare me another cause of worry."

These words, issued from a man so rarely spoken, affected the two fiery priests to lower their heads in shame. Atem was of a tender-hearted disposition and he possessed that nobility of spirit and pensive conscience so common to such characters. The sentinels having delivered the evidences that morning had struck him as hard as they had the accused. He considered Seto a dear friend as he did all his priests. He was jolted in the morning, and now he was uprooted. Was it possible that a man he so trusted could be capable of so heinous a crime? He reproached himself for his soft feelings, and immediately following, he reproached himself for his lack of faith.

But faith taken to an extreme becomes blindness—a terrible sin in a king. Did inexperience make of him a poor judge? Did youth instill in him a naiveté? Was some critical fact overlooked? His nails pressed into his palm. He stepped towards the entry, turned it on its hinge, and called a name—"Hemaka!"

A graying attendant of six-and-forty presented himself.

"Instruct the stables to prepare my horse." said Atem. "I will be there."

Hemaka nodded, and impelled by the force of the summon—unusual for the Pharaoh—rushed to execute his charge. The priests, bewildered by the sudden order, looked askance towards Atem.

He explained solemnly—"It is my natural duty. The general answer for the soldier and the Pharaoh answers for the priest. Seto mustn't be too far limited by his own two legs. I'll accost him myself and demand an account. I swear it he will tell me all! If he remembers his vows he will speak! On the honor of his soul he will tell me!"

"Impossible!" exclaimed Karim.

"Never." said Shimon.

"You are wrong." said Atem, "I will go." He took brisk steps down the corridor in the direction of the horses. Voices behind urged his stop, but he took no heed. "My guilt is implicit." he said, "I was blind to some truth, and my neglect precipitates this disaster. I will mend it, I assure you."

A grip took hold his arm and the sudden pull made him stumble. He spun his head to meet the offender and he found the unhappy face and tremulous frame of Isis. It is an appalling crime to grab a king.

"My Pharaoh," she said with a timidity he had never known from her, "don't you see how deeply your kindness cuts? You take from me a rightful fault, and you place on yourself an unrightful blame. If some trouble fell, what, then—" She fumbled her words until her idea clipped itself. Realizing with redness her faux pas, she relinquished the arm.

"Anything you feel," said Atem, "you feel unfairly. I've cleared you." He made a curt bow towards his priestess and he stepped toward his stables. With quickness Isis overtook him and placed herself in his path. "Oh Pharaoh!" said she, "You do me wrong if you believe I think first of myself. No, no, it is on your account I distress! On your account—for in that awful scene it was you, without mistake, opposite Seto."

"My Pharaoh," said Mahad, "I entreat you to consider her concern as we all share it." A remarkable transformation had passed over Mahad; the fieriest priest now favoured caution. The turn was simple to explain—the Pharaoh's reaction affected him. His courage was such that he could dismiss any threat to himself but should that same threat menace a friend he grew alarmed. People of good taste and proper thought, that is to say people of consequence, recognized the Pharaoh and Egypt as one. Mahad distinguished the two. His duty towards his country was second only to his duty towards his friend. "Stay, my Pharaoh." said he. "It would be folly to altogether scorn the foreboding of the necklace. Oracles deserve a little deference."

"That's right!" said Karim with a significant nod.

Mahad continued—"And so I propose I go myself, or with companion other than you, Pharaoh."

Shada tapped Shimon's arm with a furtive move of his own. The old man's attention gained, he spoke to his ear—"The necklace certainly compels me to think the Pharaoh should be the last to find himself near Seto, but Mahad with his nature should be the second last. Seto and Mahad, no chamber was so large that it could agreeably house their two characters. Persuade him off his pursuit, Master Shimon, anyone else would be better, anyone else."

No sooner did Shada finish did Shimon murmur in accord. Shimon had since many years relinquished his duties as priest, but his post as Vizier in no form dampened the respect he commanded. He cleared his throat and so gained the interest of the gathered. He spoke as follows—

"Our streets are so narrow that the roofs of opposite shacks sometimes appear to touch. The roads enter upon each other through obscure passages perfectly sensible to locals and labyrinthine to me. And then the mud walls will do you few favours. They are so abundant and so thoroughly section these parts that Seto may well stand three paces from you at the other face of the partition, and he would still escape notice. And of the shaded alcoves and nooks that pit our city I've said nothing. I reckon with shame as a magistrate that there are as many such dim compartments as there are crimes. And you propose, in the dark, alone, to rummage through such a city? You? a priest! You? a Pharaoh!" He shook his head. "Nonsense."

Unaccustomed to vehement resistance from his council, Atem was induced to quiet reflection. Mahad possessed more energy. "Ridiculous!" said he, "And you would propose we close our eyes to the law? Bah! your prudence is excessive, Master Simon."

"You place suggestions in my mouth" said Shimon, "as I made none. No, Seto pardoned is not the corollary of us refusing a blind chase. It is enough to commission the conscripts with this task, for tonight."

"Still," said Mahad with reduced volume, perhaps due to deference for the Vizier or due to some alignment, "I think these grave times demand a priest. With his rod he could shrug away a couple of our conscripts."

"The eyes of our men are no worse than yours," said Shimon, "and for this purpose they may be even better. If any remarkable detail appears before them it should not take long to reach our ears. Isis diagnosed correctly when she described this case as one for a surgeon and not for the soldier. There is no question Seto will be found—so have no anxiety for the law, Mahad. I just hope he will be reasonable. He has never struck me as one to have a lapse of sense, but I now have qualms."

"Ah," said Atem, sadly, "I must do nothing. If every priest opposes me, I suppose I must follow—I am no tyrant. Very well, but tonight I will have no sleep."

* * *

Seto stared gloomily at the ground. He was seated on a heavy brick that had loosened from the wall at his back. Distance lends a certain security, and finding himself far from the source of his anxiety he felt a little reassured. The market surrounded him and while it was bustling in the day, under the moon it was vacant. The merchants had long since stowed away their ware as none were foolhardy enough to leave it unattended through the night.

In the quietude afforded by these nocturnal hours any passer could make out the rustling of linen snagged on walls and stalls, as well as the caresses of the great river against the limit of the quay. These simple sounds, through charming in their simplicity, could not penetrate Seto's head. Although that animal impulse for flight had subsided since he slipped into the labyrinthine tracts of the capital, he could not shrug off those hundred human concerns.

"By this time the Pharaoh received an account no doubt. What must he think of his pledged servant?" He tapped his fist against the stone beneath in an unconscious fidget. "Why did I not leave a letter? If he possessed that perhaps my treachery would at least be a little tempered." Since the accusation Seto had been a man floundering against the tide. The moments of effort, the flashes of hope, and the bouts of regret could not stop his drift and tumble from that fading height. In such struggles weariness eventually eclipses will and the man surrenders to the current. That bitter moment dawned on him.

"Cast it all away! All is done! I've made my turn and I cannot double back. The most tender and sincere letter would not restore my world." As his mind churned his blood grew hot. "Besides, why do I abuse myself? It is Egypt that has mistreated me. I heard every order and treasured every law, and yet, and yet—"

He was roused by a movement in his periphery. It was that girl. With some embarrassment he figured that it had been long since he last addressed her, and she had been so demure as to slip from his regard. To this moment she has been standing two dozen paces from him diagonally on the other side of the avenue. He was woken by her sudden crouch. She bent until her legs doubled at her knees and her coccyx hovered above the tawny ground. One arm hugged her shins and the other fiddled with some scrap of linen that was half consumed by the ground at her feet. With delicate tugs she unearthed the waste and lifted it to her face to inspect it by the moonlight. The sun-marked, hole-infested, chewed, dust-coated strip must have been a sash in its younger days.

"Why do you shamble about there?" said Seto. He tapped his brick bench, "Come sit, your legs will tire and who knows how many steps until the next rest." The snap of her head in his direction indicated she heard, her wide-eyed interest and stillness said she did not hear all. He gestured for her. She closed the gap with a half jog and came to a stand four arms from him. She still clutched the scrap.

"You keep at a distance," said Seto with a sardonic smirk, "has it finally occurred to you that I am a poisonous man?"

"No, you're wrong!" she protested with an unconscious step forward, "It's only that folks find me more agreeable at a distance."

Her ingenuous remark caused him recall the blows of rock that fell upon her the day before. The condition of this unlucky creature was to him an enigma. How was it a quiet radiance could emanate from the pores of her who was bruised, who ought to be uneasy, and who ought to look towards the future with fear.

"Where in Tanis do you live?" he asked her.

She appeared to think on his question, there was a faint furrow on her brow. "Hm," she said at last, "by the South Port. Among the refuse of mariners are sometimes sections of crates and drums—they are fine windbreakers and on cold nights a blanket too." She added with a smile, "Of course, on days of rain and through wet spells I am elsewhere as the port is too low and open to the Great River."

He and she never exchanged more than a few lines at any occasion, but with her every habit, her every gesture, and with each dropped word a degree of obscurity was lifted from his view of her world. There was a palpitation at his throat. A foreign sentiment overcame him. It was pity and it was also something higher—it could be felt with such intensity that it could be called emotion. His imaginations painted her into a scene. He had observed peasants kneeling for bread and he laid eyes on living skeletons that a few seasons prior may have been round cheeked youth no older than twelve. And in that squalor he had also seen the rot—he chased the black-toothed rogues that crawled the lower strata of the capital. But the idea of this guileless girl tottering or kneeling in those shadowy corners made him ill.

Her form blotted all else from his head and with a rare absorption his eyes drank her figure. Her full-sleeved coarse linen smock stopped above her knees and with age it had taken the colour of Egyptian sand. The patches at her elbows were thinning and it would not be long before they were bare to the wind. Its wide oval neckline was fraying. Her second and last possession was her pair of straw sandals. She was poorly shod—the soles were worn paper thin. Pebbles bruised her feet and the damp ground chilled them.

Seto's lips twitched with the urge to address to her a few warm words, but in spite all the opuses he consumed he failed to summon a sentence. He wanted to press her little hand between his two larger ones—his arm would not move. "You must be cold." he muttered with a sidelong glance. Instinct compelled him to reach toward his back and he grabbed only air. The heavy cape of blue and gold had been until today his second shadow.

"I'm not cold," she chirped, "look—" She drew back her right sleeve such that the hem rested on the elbow and linen bunched above it. In the vague light of the night her limb was smooth and snowy. "It is you that is cold." she added and then pointed the bare bit of his arm—its whiskers were erect and rising from innumerable mounds. A brisk breeze blew and Seto shivered. He turned away from those keen eyes and proceeded towards the river. "Let us not loiter." he said. Under a better light a slight and ill-suited flush may have been remarked on his complexion.

* * *

The two defiled along River Road—him the head and her the tail. The moon had risen higher in the night and already they had crossed six and seventy sleepy facades. A roof and four walls were his first want, but he was particular in what he sought. It was not a question of indulgence but of prudence. He would gladly collapse onto some straws of barley provided that that sorry bed was lawful, unbothered, in an obscure quarter, and along a track neither lonely nor lively. Perhaps he was exacting to a fault for a fugitive, but it is hard for a creature to act contrary to his nature.

To better paint this prowl, it bears repeating that Seto was a laconic man. Several seasons prior, on a warm evening, 'round a table of meat and mead with the late pharaoh and others priests, Karim joked that Seto had been the "most awful bore" that ever served as his companion. "Two hours to Esna" his partner had related to the company, "and two and a third to return, and all the while passed with nothing but a sack of stone on horseback, Seto I mean, to grunt one or two words at my banter." This happy memory—it will be admitted Seto did not laugh with the others on that occasion but he was not averse to raillery—returned to him as he branched into an passage between a butchery and some luckless dwelling. That distant episode with distance doubled in the last day resurfaced on account of the weight of silence between him and his shadow. In fact, so restrained were the two with their words that it could be claimed by the author, without being guilty of embellishment, that every phrase passed between Seto and Kisara up to that point in history has been recorded in this text.

"Why does she not speak?" wondered Seto. It was a small thought earlier in the night, but it persisted as did the speechless air, and it grew in proportion as he walked. "Perhaps the gravity of the affair at last settles in her head. That she finds herself in an ugly corner of Tanis with a prospective dungeon dweller as a guide. That she has unintentionally followed Crime and left behind Law in her fine coop."

He entered the Square of R— through one of its many auxiliary inlets. Those soft footsteps remained on his heel and also on his mind."She doesn't talk" was the constant thought. As a fugitive he ought to be content, but as an honest man he was worried. "Has some fright seized her throat?" He had qualms about her tumble into his overturned world—he was certain that at the fork-road she had moved on some strange impulse and with half intelligence. "It would be no shock if she had regret that her timid tongue could not express."

His hand drifted into the large pocket of his calf-length shendyt He kneaded a woolen pouch between his three fingers and his thumb—this was his purse, and it was as much a bandit's bag as it was a purse. It was assembled, or rather stuffed, during his initial intoxication by the illicit road. A square of wool a little larger than a fanned palm was set on his mattress, and like a thief he ransacked his chamber for any pieces of worth that could fit in that bit of fabric. Its four corners were tied with a string once he had within them seven coins of silver, two coins of gold, a necklace of gold and lapis gifted him by Nomarch Ames of the Shrine Land, and a pair of carbuncled bracelets that once circled the wrists of the old master of the Millennium Rod. His austerity induced his chamber to have very little relative to his rank, but even the "very little" of a High Priest was a handsome sum in Egypt proper.

If shelter was the first question then the matter of the girl was the second. With Isis as witness he had made her two offers; either to remain a guest of Egypt or he would drop her in some popular district of Tanis. The first she rejected and the idea of the second he could no longer swallow. She was destitute, he was certain of it. Of course he never uttered the question but some things could be inferred. Where was she to go once he said to her "Farewell"?

"I could leave her the two coins of gold and some of silver," he thought "those should serve for a time". The idea did not survive, "Bah! I suspect it will not take long for some scamp to separate her and the metal." In the night preceding he could have granted her a good room with a word, and now he could do naught but rack his head. Misery is formed in some part by impotence. Seto, a man of erect back and high head, was tormented by his new feebleness. He recalled with contempt the function he was obliged to attend a little over a fortnight ago. Treasurer Pashedu wished to host and honour a hatter named Yuny for an evening. During some afternoon errand one of the three rings Pashedu wore had slipped from his finger, and he only realized a few hours later when a hatter knocked on the engraved stone gateway of his residence to inquire if he had lost some jewellery. The said evening was held in the grande salle of Pashedu's home with a view to, according to the Treasurer, "promoting good citizenry". Pashedu granted Yuny a setat of land and two cows, in effect tripling the property of the hatter. Upon exiting the hall that evening Seto had heard a woman say to her husband, "He's an admirable man, that Pashedu." It was a double reward—Pashedu was very pleased to shine a light on his generosity.

And Seto, what did he do for the one who safeguarded a small life? He shared with her his crime.

His contemplations moved from Kisara to himself. His purse felt light. He reckoned with some husbanding it would sustain him for two or three seasons. After that, assuming the struggle was yet unfinished, he could only imagine he would have to find some toil for a plate and a bed.

And what a terrible foe Egypt made! To have Egypt as enemy was to have light as persecutor; he was consigned to darkness. He was obliged to hide, he was obliged to crawl, he was obliged to have ear open as he slept, and to cast furtive glances over his shoulder as he worked. The treacherous escape was a success and a more treacherous existence awaited. Pitiless Egypt!—not content with taking from him light and warmth, she also took from him trust. It is a miserable thing to look upon your fellow citizens and to see only spies. It was the lawful duty of every Egyptian to betray him. His confidence would become something to be sold.

Seto, with face impassive and gait only a little unsteady, agonized as he crossed the Square of R—. It was on this unhappy occasion that another trouble fell upon him. The Square of R— was a quadrangle entered by two principal avenues: Road of Neith which cut the short legs of the square, and Road Apis which cut the long. At the northern mouth of the square, that is to say where R— became Neith, there could be perceived under the light emanating from the porthole of a shack, a tall bronze man clad in white shendyt and white blouse—a sword was fixed to his waist.

Seto's eyes grew wide, his heart thumped against his chest, and the rigidity of stone passed over his body. He had recognized the young officer named Hori, one of Mahad's men. The dog often heralds the master. His legs became rooted and he prayed the soldier would pass.

Law nonetheless spotted Crime, and the soldier approached. To be found already!

* * *

Let us pass to the shadow, the tail, and the fairer half of our pair. If it is said that Seto had prowled through the twisting roads of Tanis on that night, then Kisara had glided behind him. There was a lightness in her step, a bounce in her gait, a shine in her countenance—she was happy. She did not know when her heart last had a taste of this mix of serenity and joy. It was an angelic drunkenness.

But what of Egypt? what of Law? what of Crime? what of night? Those were blips invisible from her elated summit. Her spirit was of the sky and her mind was of the earth. By sky it is meant angel, and by earth it is meant animal. She could not hold resentment, and with her a trouble out of sight was a trouble forgotten. Her answer to confrontation was flight—to run from trouble was to resolve it. Seto had flown very far from that woman, hence the issue was very much resolved.

There are those who selfishly shut their sight to crime. Kisara was not among them. She looked straight with lucid eyes and she perceived only the back that her soul had long ago captured. She did not once consider that the man who walked before her could have ever dipped his hand into the swamp of infamy. "It is impossible." she thought. Yesterday she was called witch, she was not a witch, she said as much, but the mob was cold and deaf. Today he is called criminal. She was not a witch and he was not a criminal—there was nothing simpler. She did not yet understand that to be a witch to the tanner was a lesser offence than to be a traitor to the throne.

Her feet followed Seto while her eyes were in another world. When he froze she did not, and so her nose bounced off his shoulder and her chest pressed his back. When she was at fault, just as when she was victim of a fault, she would beg pardon with a deep bow. On this occasion the ingrained bow was not made nor was a backward step taken. An invisible string held her. Through two layers of bone, blood, and skin she felt a palpitation—this was the tenor of his heart. In that silver of night, for a moment, a single organ beat in the bodies of two animals. It was rapid and tremulous and she recognized it to be a fearful throb. Her own heart had many times produced such a sound, but if she were hitherto told Seto's heart could produce the same, she would have answered—"You lie". She had thought that man exempt from fright.

By degrees, as if by osmosis, and without understanding, she grew fearful as well. A lone livid cloud drew over her sunny vista. The short lapse passed and her attention regained she found herself leaned against Seto. She retreated a half pace and murmured "Sorry". Seto was silent. Gripped by the danger to his front he did not register the bump at his back. She peeked over his shoulder to find the obstacle he had met and she saw the approach of a man.

"Citizens, a moment please." said the soldier. Kisara did not know him. His high head, broad shoulders, and heavy arms provided him a formidable air.

The soldier continued,—"Citizens, it is for good reason this quarter is sparse at this hour. Just two nights back a small elderly man gave me account of a huddle of layabouts he had passed in the day by that corner there. He crossed them a second time on his return, but with the sun away they had become bandits. That elderly man had received a dagger between his lower ribs."

Hori shook his head and then cast a glance about the empty square. With pensive smile he said—"As of late, in these parts one outrage seems to follow another."

Seto listened to the athletic soldier without a word. Less than a month had passed since Hori had inclined his head towards him out of deference, and now Seto regarded the same man with apprehension. The apprehension in Seto soon begot resentment.

"Am I being made a fool?" he thought. "He may be laughing as he wins time for an ambush; I ought to have Duos hurl him against the wall and then dash."

In truth, Hori had not recognized Seto. Night threw one obscurity over him and the commoner's tunic and bottom another. Hori of course knew Priest Seto, but it was the blue robes and tall headdress he knew more so than the man.

"Return indoors." said Hori, "It's reckless to navigate these roads so late, especially with a woman in tow. Do you live far?"

"Not long from here." said Seto mechanically. He did not look at Hori but rather past him. The fictional ambuscade was heavy on his mind.

"That's good, then I won't retain you any longer citizen. Take care, and keep to the wide roads."

Seto gave a nod and then crossed the soldier. He had taken four paces when he heard the following from behind,—"Wait! You're not from here are you?" Filled with dread Seto turned round. He found Hori's eyes studying Kisara. It was not him who was addressed but her. Up to now chance had placed Kisara such that he formed a screen between her and Hori. The soldier crossed, she had now found herself between the two men. Though the night was dark it could not conceal the whiteness of her skin or the paleness of her hair. The strange sight did not escape Hori's notice.

The sudden question surprised her. She stopped but could not answer. The soldier was less than an arm's length from her and he being a little taller than Seto towered her. She inclined her head upwards and she found the eyes of the soldier looking down. Unlike Hori she could not stare long, and from some bashfulness she dropped her head again.

Hori's gaze travelled from Kisara to Seto and then back. "The foreign girl says little, but in these circumstances perhaps more than you think. I thought it unusual to so late see wanderers in the unpopular Square of R— I now have some clarity. The sale of man is a question for society; it's too great for a man like me. My chief is an intelligent priest and he has low opinion of it, and I suspect the Pharaoh does too—they were mates since youth you see. You scowl citizen, and I ramble, I won't any longer. I meant to say, even that sordid business in which I've caught you has its laws. You merchants of lives are only just tolerated, but to practice your trade under the cover of darkness is to abuse a thin tolerance. Tell me, where shall you sell her?"

Seto wished to say,—"You've caught the wrong track, dog!" But he held his tongue as the true track was more terrible.

"Ha! Of course you won't say; you traffickers have your black honour." Hori then addressed Kisara, "Young woman, say that you are captive and at the end of your phrase you will be free. Only Egypt has a right to prisoners, and only the law could sell the unwilling."

"What a strange concern this man carries." thought Kisara, "Where does he see the trafficker and the trafficked?"

"You are still quiet." said Hori to Kisara. "You must trust me, though I understand your reluctance. Another patrol may close his eyes for a bit of silver, and for a bit more would act as escort for the man-merchant. I'm not that patrol, I'm a true son of Egypt, I swear it." It was then the soldier had a realization. He gave vent to a sigh and he shook his head with the smallest smile. "I speak for nothing, don't I? Egypt's land outstrips its tongue—I wonder what small language the girl understands. Stay! both of you. My second will find me here soon. He is of a western tribe, perhaps he knows—"

The soldier's voice seized with the first sound that broke from Kisara's lips. She spoke with a softness that was hesitant to be heard, with face towards Hori but with eyes not bold enough to cross his—"I believe you sir, you appear to me very sincere," she added, "but you also appear to me very funny."

* * *

There are two breeds of baseness; the heinous villain and the petty miscreants. The first is the realm of tyrants and demons, and the other is a species of thieves and imps. The demon does evil by decree, he tramples on nature and justice while beneath the sun, he mocks the gods, he makes Seth smile, and history regards him with a somber awe. The imp would happily brush the shoes of the demon—he crawls on the ground and forms a toothed smile in the dark. The demon is the highest of the beasts, the imp is the lowest of the wretches.

Pharaoh Isu, the ruling king three centuries prior Atem, is one who belongs to the first. And what had he done for this honour? He peeled his face and revealed a monster. Nauny, a noblewoman of the time and a witness, relates that the catastrophe began with a jealous dialogue. Isu said to Perneb, Nomarch of the Prospering Sceptre Land,—"The point of your new palace flies higher than mine. With such revenue you ought to furnish more to the capital."

"Nonsense." said Perneb. "The industry of my people should not be chastised with a tax."

Isu insisted and Perneb refused. Ten days hence Isu answered with dam and embargo. A check was built on every road to the proscribed nome while the navy hovered off its ports. "Don't let a single pot pass!" was Isu's order. The dam diverted the river, the soldiers diverted the grain. To abridge; the harvest was grim—the surrounding nomes suffered and the Prospering Sceptre Land starved. The proud and hard-working peasants of that land robbed their old neighbours from hunger. After some time there were no morsels to be stolen from homes—it was said men butchered and ate men. When these reports reached the ear of Isu he said, "Let them eat Perneb too."

Through the leaves of history demons mark their deeds—Isu signs his name on the famine of the Prospering Sceptre Land, the initials of Commander Amasis appear over the massacres in Djedet. But on occasion the scholar passes over authorless tragedies, and he asks himself—"Was this collapse the work of cruel chance?" There are in fact such events with no perpetrator but fate, but there are also a few which exude an odour. The scholar upon leaning in, with dissection, will find seeped in these the poison of an imp. It will be argued these last are the most hideous, more so than the crime of a demon or a tragedy of fate. It is revolting for a swindler to introduce his venom to a misunderstanding between giants, or for an imp to leave his slime on the work of providence.

In the volumes on the era of Atem, perhaps on the margins of a leaf or two will be found the name Shemay. For better or worse imps are consigned to obscurity. Shemay was a cobbler with the scruples of a hyena. He was unpleasant when the trade was healthy, and he was vile when it was poor. His weakening black hair half covered his brow, his limbs were thin, and he was of thirty and some years though his face spoke of fifty. He had a wife, Citizeness Iset. She was a little plumper than her husband, about as tall as him, she was of jealous nature, she was petty, and her sole admirable quality was her love for her child—a small bony boy of four.

The family lived on Road Lagus which was entered upon by the larger Avenue of Market C—. Their home consisted of a shack of three rooms—it was a low rectangular construction one chamber wide and three chambers long. One was a chamber for sleep, another was for a cobbler's work, and the last was an empty unit recently grafted onto the shack. From Road Lagus could be seen two doors on the facade. The old sections which communicated internally shared an entry, the new had its own as a solid wall separated it from the old. The attachment was constructed with the intention of shifting the shop from the adjoining room to the isolated one, but the dearth of work threw water on Shemay's desire and bitterness on his face.

Late one evening Shemay heard at the threshold of his shack a knock. "What rascal is it at this hour?" he muttered. He took hold of a sturdy iron rod he kept by the side of his door and then he pushed open the panel. Faced to him was a tall man with dark shendyt and light tunic, his brown hair stopped above his inflamed eyes.

"Who are you?" said Shemay, "And what is it you want?"

It was then Shemay noticed a few steps behind the man a young woman with a scarf wrapped about her head.

"Through that unfastened casement I saw a vacant chamber," said the man, "let me put it to use."

"What?"

"Permit me to borrow the room."

"Eh? You mean to sleep here?"

"Yes."

Shemay pointed his rod at the man's chest. "Off!" he shouted. "Be off! This is no alms house!"

"I will pay." said the man.

"With what? Your shoes or your shirt? I don't need either. Off! Or I'll give you a whack!"

Shemay shook his iron, but the man did not fall back. Unease came over the cobbler. "I might truly have to bash him." he thought. It was not the blow which made him nervous but rather the chance of reprisal. He was reluctant to start a scuffle in which his victory was not certain.

With a deft move the man withdrew an item from his pocket. "I will pay with this." said he. Shemay's eyes grew wide. The man held between his thumb and forefinger a large and bright disc of gold. "I'm not a thief," the man added, "just an unfortunate jeweller."

The cobbler's wife and child had made their way to the doorstep. Iset clutched a brown knife close against her chest and anxiously regarded her husband and the stranger. The small boy looked on with a naive interest so natural to little creatures.

"It's—It's not real!" contested Shemay, "You think some street man will fool me with a bit of coloured bronze?"

"Own it for a moment, and then tell me I'm a counterfeit."

Shemay stretched out one hand, the other still threatening with the rod. The man dropped the coin onto the cobbler's palm. Shemay essayed its weight, he pushed his thumb's nail into the metal, he touched it with his nose, he brought it to his eye, he brushed it his tongue, and with every move the iron rod fell a little lower until at last it was abandoned on the ground. A horrible transformation had occurred—Shemay's scowl had become a smile, and the second was more hideous than the first! "Ah!" The cobbler clasped his hands together, "Forgive my coarseness, sir! The night is clouded and my sight is weak. I did not know a respectable man visits my home. Let us forget, let us forget, and let us start afresh. You said you wanted a bedchamber? Done. It is yours for the night. I offer you a dinner too. The butcher does not live far; I'll have my wife run there if you wish it." The man shook his head. Shemay continued, "Though you appear to me more fatigued than famished. Do not let me keep you. That door is unlocked, the apartment is yours. Iset, go furnish it with some linen sheets for our lodger and his wife. Ah! and as for the sum, hm—let us review in the morning. It is the hour for sleep and you are weary."

"We shall decide now." said the man.

"Of course, certainly— it is as you want, sir." Shemay made to tally some invisible quantity with his fingers. "For a night? or will you remain a little longer?"

"Longer. Five nights, perhaps fifteen, perhaps more, I can't say."

There was a carnivorous glint in the cobbler's eyes. He nodded in understanding and continued to tally. "Hmm, take twenty-five days—no thirty days, and for the coin we'll be even."

"Be serious!" exclaimed the man, angrily. "Leave off the games."

Shemay's cheeks and lips twisted in the manner of an ingratiating peddler. There are sugars which are nauseating. There are smiles which when cast upon a man cause him to feel a slug crawl across his skin. "I meant no offense, sir—none! It's truly a fine dwelling, the finest on this road. Fresh, too. I had erected it at the request of my child. Two seasons back he said to me—'Papa, our home is small'. I resolved to have more. In every brick you'll find the love of a father and husband. I uttered the price not out of malice but from feeling for the chamber. You'll be its first tenant. I apologize—I babble and it's late. The price was made heavy by my passion, I apologize again, it's not right. How is thirty-five days for that coin?

The man scowled.

By now the reader has no doubt recognized the man as Seto and the woman with covered head as Kisara. In his nocturnal search Seto had spied the home of the cobbler and he saw in it a refuge.

Kisara was anxious when the master of the house shook his iron, but following his about face and the onset of the barter she grew distracted. Though she never took part she had too often seen the tug of war between bread and drink while she escaped the noon sun in an angle of a market. Her weary legs pulled her fascination towards the little backless stone bench pushed against the facade of the shack.

"Sit, sit young woman." urged the cobbler with a sugary laugh. "There are none more hospitable than we."

She accepted the proffered seat. The wife of the cobbler had returned with a bundle of white and tawny linen while her boy had ventured a little further into the yard. The child gazed at the two haggling men and then towards her. With childish calculus he figured the more welcoming of the two curiosities, and with his little strides he approached Kisara. He shyly placed his delicate hand on her thigh. She found that his palm was half as large as her own and she thought it charming. Neither the cobbler nor his wife seemed to pay the two much mind. Kisara, so often a parish, felt this a rare and pleasant moment. Profiting of the chance she held the child by the two sides of his chest and drew him between her knees. The boy giggled and the sound of his mirth produced in her a joy. His brown eyes too large for his little head peered at her face. His light hand felt her cheek. "White." he said and giggled again. "Look Mama, white!"

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

I apologise for the excessive delay, I surprised myself with how long I put it off. This chapter largely centered on Priest Seto, and in the following I hope to give Kisara a larger presence. Also, I want to give more scenes to Atem and those who serve him. Seto and Kisara interacting with either Atem or those on the side of the law are the scenes I most wanted to put to paper since I started. There is a lot I want to write, but it's a shame that I so often lose focus. I hope to release the next chapter in a more timely manner.

On another note, I give a thanks to all my readers as it is always satisfying to know there are others flipping through the pages I wrote. I give a particular thanks to the person who left a review—I was pleasantly surprised to see it one morning so long after the initial upload. As always, do not hesitate to leave suggestions, criticisms, questions, or comments. I read and appreciate them all, and I'll do my best to address them.

Then, until next time.

All the best


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